My exposure to Get Satisfaction is through Twitter, which appears to be using Get Satisfaction as platform for customers to vent. However, Twitter doesn’t appear to read any of the Get Satisfaction threads complaining about it service.

I finally gave in and joined Twitter last week and looked forward to simultaneously updating Twitter and Facebook. I tried installing the official Twitter Facebook app, but it appears to be not allowing new users to install. Based on the feed back on Get Satisfaction, Twitter users haven’t been getting satisfaction on this issue for weeks.

I’ve been complaining to Twitter and about Twitter ad nauseam for the last week, including several unsatisfying “Get Satisfaction” posts.

A blogger discovered one of my posts and blogged about it. http://shortformblog.com/tech/yo-twitter-facebook-what-the-f-is-session-test

According to the blog, Facebook and Twitter were not even aware of the problem which has been going on for weeks. I find this pathetic since I’m by far not the only person to post about this on Get Satisfaction or get the same ridiculous automated Zendesk response from Twitter. Evidently they don’t read their customer complaints.

Get Satisfaction appears to be a tool lazy companies use to establish fake CRM or what I like to call customer non-service.

Also, being new to gs, I found the biggest challenge was how underemphasized the search was. The focus is so heavily on asking new questions when there may very well be answers already to what I am about to ask. When you are asking a question or reporting a problem, it should almost force you through the search and suggest possible matches before allowing the creation of a repetitive question. Ideas and praise are less likely to be repeats or matter that they are. As a customer looking for answers, I’d really like to get them as fast as possible.

Also feel like I’d be more inclined to see product areas above other customers. Seeing a bunch of avatars for people I don’t likley know doesn’t seem as valuable as identifying with a product I am using and getting to answers faster.

“..I think you’ve treaded into a moral grey area by adding companies without their knowledge and without doing some due diligence to find their official support channels and linking to them, however arcane they may be.

“…But again, without an obvious link to official support, you are doing a disservice to both the customers and the company. If absolutely no official support exists, state so. Its better for everyone.”

One of the things that Thor, et al., have continually said is that GetSatisfaction support pages are either largely created by companies (80-90%), or by customers seeking support where none exists or where they’ve received inadequate support from “official channels” (10-20%). GetSatisfaction isn’t adding the “unofficial” support pages — dissatisfied customers are.

From a customer support / community management perspective, if a company doesn’t provide adequate support, their customers will get it somewhere else. It is a company’s responsibility to engage their customers wherever they congregate. If customers complain on Twitter, companies need to engage them on Twitter. If it’s on Google Groups, they need to engage them there. And if it’s on GetSatisfaction, then they’d better engage them there, too — even if it’s simply to say “Thanks! We’ve created a support ticket for the issue you’re experiencing on our official support site — we’d love to engage you there!” However, it is because many companies do not do this that GetSatisfaction has such a devoted (and satisfied) user base.

The best customer support occurs wherever customers ask for it.