A perfect example of the power of Twitter in the world of customer service is the recent debacle of daily deal site kgbdeals.com‘s (formerly The Dealist) unfortunate partnership with the now-defunct Digital Doorstep to distribute Fandango Bucks. The daily deals site offered a compelling offer back in October 2011 to purchase vouchers for Fandango Bucks for two tickets worth up to $24 for only $12 (which is now less than the cost of a first-run movie in Manhattan, where I live). I bought four, giving me eight tickets, but I had to use them before January 31, 2012.

The vouchers had to be redeemed through Digital Doorstep, a digital fulfillment company. Pasting the codes would then reveal the Fandango codes needed to apply when purchasing the movie tickets. I used two of vouchers without incident, and preemptively redeemed the other two so that I would have the Fandango codes ready to use. Now, with just days before their expiration, I decided to use them. When on the Fandango site and in the process of purchasing tickets, I discovered that my codes were “cancelled.” Perplexed, I went back to the Digital Doorstep site, where I was informed that the company was no longer redeeming coupons and that I should go back to the deal site in question to obtain a refund.

The kgbdeals.com site was of little help. There was nothing on the site referring to this issue. The “Contact Us” section had only an online form, and no phone number. Googling for a phone number was unsuccessful. The top deal sites Groupon and Living Social both offer toll-free support lines, so this did not bode well. I submitted a report, but got no response or even an acknowledgement in email. I then decided to see if the company had a presence on Twitter. They did. I immediately tweeted them about my problem. When I looked at their Twitter page, I noticed a number of similar tweets, and their responses, which gave a special email address for each person to use to send them particulars of their transaction. Apparently kgbdeals had set up a “Digital Doorstep Response Team,” with a corresponding email address.

I sent to this address the same content of my earlier form submission. Now, within minutes, I had a reply — automated, but a reply — and not longer after, I had a personal reply. It took a number of back and forth emails to get things straightened out, but eventually I was rewarded with a notice that my canceled codes would be refunded $24 within five days. (Notably, there was another email from another person on their team, calling me “Alexander,” saying I’d be getting $48. I let them know, and then they sent the correct one.)

So, thanks to Twitter, problem solved. I’m disappointed, however, that the company still has not bothered to put up any sort of notice on their website pointing people to the solution I found on my own. I’ve discovered that this is often the case: a company does a decent job handling disasters via Twitter, but still allows its old-school customer service people to do a lousy job. (I find it nearly amusing, since I cannot help but think of the Russian KGB when I see the name kgbdeals, and their handling of this mess reminded me of how the old Russian bureaucracy might have handled it.) For that reason, I unsubscribed from kgbdeals.com today.

Despite all of this clear and convincing body of evidence, a recent visit by a postal inspector determined that the address is “actually” 603. Somehow, this has escaped the attention of the USPS and the entire Western world since 1908. It has not ever been a problem for anyone, but now that the postal “service” has become aware of it, it is a huge problem. The postal service announced via a flyer in our mailboxes that the address is incorrect and that all mail must now be addressed as 603 West 168th Street, failing which, all mail sent to 601 will be returned to the sender after a two-week “courtesy” period.

There apparently is no 601. It’s not as if said mail could possibly go anywhere else by mistake. There are only two possibilities: Barney Fife (a/k/a Don Knotts on “The Andy Griffith Show”) is the postal inspector, or the United States Postal Service itself has “gone postal.”

So let’s see if I have this straight. Thanks to Mr. Fife, literally tons of mail that will come to this building in the next six to twelve months will be returned by the Post Office to their respective senders. The cumulative cost of postal service man hours, driving of postal vehicles, delivery by air, gasoline to fuel the trucks and planes, not to mention the thousands of hours of people needlessly sending forms to vendors, service providers, friends and family, etc. and ad nauseum to have them “correct” the building address, is astounding. Since the USPS is effectively absorbing the cost of all such returned mail, this also means many thousands of dollars in lost postal revenue to a service that is so broke that it has threatened it could go out of business, and has asked Congress to let them off the hook for the deals it made with the postal union. With such a broken bureaucracy, it’s not surprising why.

Of course, the sensible solution to this non-problem is to fix the entry in whatever book or database or other official document has gotten our Barney Fife’s feathers so ruffled. After 101 years, Mr. Fife, my coaching to you: you might consider another line of work.

The coaching lesson here? The address change might even be technically correct, but always look at the cost of “being right” versus doing “what works.”

Have you noticed that you are only seeing updates in your newsfeed from the same people lately? Have you also noticed that when you post things like status messages, photos and links, the same circle of people are commenting and everyone else seems to be ignoring you?

Don’t worry, everyone still loves you and nobody has intentionally blocked you. The problem is that a large chunk of your friend/fan list can’t see anything you post and here’s why:

The “New Facebook” has a newsfeed setting that by default is automatically set to show ONLY posts from people who you’ve recently interacted with or interacted the most with (which would be limited to the couple of weeks just before people started switching to the new profile). So in other words, for both business and personal pages, unless your friends/fans commented on one of your posts within those few weeks or vice versa – you are now invisible to them and they are invisible to you!!

HERE’S THE FIX: On the homepage click the “Most Recent” title on the right of the Newsfeed, then click on the drop down arrow beside it and select “Edit Options”, click on “Show Posts From” and change the setting to “All Of Your Friends and Pages” (you can also access the “Edit Options” link at the very bottom of the facebook homepage on the right)

Note: Business pages do not have a newsfeed; however, page owners should adjust the settings on their personal accounts.

The good news is: now you can now view all of your friends and fans again. Great!! But you aren’t finished yet! Here is the bad news: YOU ARE STILL INVISIBLE to a large portion of your list. You must get the word out to ALL of your friends and fans by inviting them to this event or creating one of your own so they can read the post and adjust their settings. To invite your friends: Click on “Attending” at the top and then you will see an option to invite your friends under the smiley face. It’s public so everyone who logs onto facebook can view it and even the friends who can’t see your posts WILL see the event invitation. You can also tweet about it, create a blog post or send out an email to your subscribers in hopes of reaching them all.

I’m also on iTunes. My entire directory of shows are there for the taking. I’ve learned that it’s not easy or intuitive to find my page there. For some reason, searching for them gives a “no results found” while at the same time displaying the show with my picture on the right side of the page. So I’ve made it easy for my listeners who prefer to use my iTunes feed. Just use this handy short URL: www.bit.ly/coachescorner and you’ll be taken right to the page.

I also have a contest going. The first person to write to me (at coach @ andrewporetz.com) and say “I’m your 10,000th listener” (along with the guidelines below) will win a full three-month coaching package and assessment valued at up to $1,297!

To win, check back here or on Twitter (www.twitter.com/coachandrew) for my announcement that I’ve passed 10,000 listeners, then send an e-mail with the subject line “Put me in, Coach!” In the body, tell me that you believe you’re the 10,000th listener, and tell me the name of my guest and a short description of the show. Tell me something you learned from listening to the show.

The second and third persons to write in will each win a one-month coaching package.

All others will receive an initial assessment and free one-hour coaching session. All winners will also get a 20% discount on all future coaching services.

The contest begins as soon as my show reaches 10,000 listens (as of June 3rd I’m at 9,832, so it can happen in the next day or so) and ends on June 30th. Good luck!

http://ping.fm/53gru

My show starts at 9:30 p.m. EST. You can listen in at www.blogtalkradio.com/coachandrew. If you’re listening live, I’d love some call-ins! Call us at 646-929-2893. You can listen to the replay at any time.

One month after my thyroidectomy, I’m back to all normal activities, including biking. I’m feeling good, and am getting used to Armour Thyroid (which we’ll talk about separately). The only thing not to come back, so far, is my voice; my surgeon informed me last week that my right vocal cord is weak, and may take months to recover. I can speak, but if I go above a certain area of my voice, I crack and squeak. My once-excellent singing voice (he said, modestly) sounds suspiciously like Alfalfa’s. I can now sing just like the old boy without bothering to do an impression. I thought I’d post a before and after video comparison:

Before:

After: