[russgray]

That's really interesting. I've noticed that complaining on Twitter often helps things get moving when the telephone support is giving you the run-around, but I always assumed that was because I was airing their dirty laundry publicly. Seems like complaints via non-standard routes work even when private...

[vidarh]

I think it worked because it still is unusual. The people I contacted presumably rarely hear directly from customers, and are so less likely to be "inoculated" against seeing those kind of complaints as normal.

Presumably most people want to do the right thing for their customers, but frontline staff often don't have authority, and soon gives up escalating systemic complaints (or even gets punished if the continue to bring it up), so if you don't get help right away the solution is often to find a way of bypassing the layer(s) that are powerless or have given up trying, and you find people that often do care deeply when they get to hear about such problems, but rarely do hear.

The moment something like this becomes common, these people will retreat from LinkedIn, or LinkedIn will take measures to protect them (win-win for LinkedIn: Let extra busy people make it more expensive to reach them)

I've used Twitter too, as well as my blog + Twitter. A few years ago I'd problem cancelling my cable subscription, and ended up getting a call from an assistant to the CEO of Virgin Media on the Saturday morning following a posting on the Friday. But in the case of DHL, Twitter too was a dead end - they seem to not care much about their Twitter feed.