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Alex Hern

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When life gave O2 network failure, it made networkfailureade on Twitter

O2's social media guru is making the most of a bad situation

By Alex Hern Published 12 July 2012 13:47

An O2 ad in Berlin. Photograph: Getty Images

O2's twitter account, @O2 is mostly there to dispense friendly advice, but every now and again they are given the chance to go a bit off piste. Sometimes, its the hope that a human face - well, tweet - may retain a customer:

Sometimes it's to deal with, occasionally shocking, abuse:

Once people noticed @O2 was having fun, they started joining in:

But maybe it's time for @O2 to go home now:

More from Alex Hern

View the discussion thread.

22 comments

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Fri, 2012-07-20 11:03 — j ball (not verified)

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Fri, 2012-07-20 12:25 — Middle-aged statesman (not verified)

learn how to spell it

Mon, 2012-07-16 12:15 — Luke Jones (not verified)

The O2 social media team handled the entire thing incredibly well.

Mon, 2012-07-16 12:15 — Luke Jones (not verified)

The O2 social media team handled the entire thing incredibly well.

Sun, 2012-07-15 14:05 — Samantha Gray (not verified)

It is genius and proves there O2 have some truly brand loyal consumers out there! I wrote a post on this as well... http://www.samanthagray.co.uk/2012/07/brands-in-crisis-tweeting-to-come-...

Fri, 2012-07-13 15:25 — EmilyNicols (not verified)

Truly brilliant from O2. The kind of stuff that every marketer would like to do if they had brand backing. Shame to see that O2 have deleted them now though. Still... fun while it lasted!

Fri, 2012-07-13 12:51 — G Man (not verified)

@Chris Owen : Shame on you for being so uptight, life has ups and down, you dont always need someone to blame.

A service outage could happen any time, any where... take the recent banking issue. But its miserable people who write hateful abuse as in the above cases that make it a horrible experience for everyone.

Ten thumbs up to O2 for handling it so well... oh, and once I got through trying to find out what was up, they were nothing but friendly informed and helpful. Much more than I can say for some other carriers... ah3m... no hint in there<

Fri, 2012-07-13 17:26 — Chris Owen (not verified)

@G Man - heya, didn't mean to come across as so 'uptight' and i wholly agree that no brand should have to put up with abuse on twitter (or anywhere else); I'm in no way vindicating that approach from consumers. Isolated from the context above, responding to abuse in such a fashion is commendable and one brands could indeed use to undermine such aggression - it's difficult to remain a hardnut when someone's making you look a fool.

I'm merely suggesting that a crisis is not the greatest time to wheel out the smart-arse card. Imagine if RBS et al had responded in the banking crisis with "hey, you've got a cheque book haven't you?" or the like.

I don;t mean to sound grumpy, i'm just saying that there's a time and a place for sarcasm and I'm not wholly convinced it was 'then;.

@wonky_donky

Fri, 2012-07-13 11:44 — Chris Owen (not verified)

while, yes, these tweets are funny and show a human side to a corporate twitter feed, personally i don't think the hours that your phone network collapses entirely is quite the right time to get smug and 'hilarious' on twitter.

it smacks of being rather glib and too-clever-by-half when really, what people wanted was apologies and reassurance. While both of these can only be vaguely genuine online (people will always see them as disingenuous), I don't think the only alternative to these is smug smart arsery.

@wonky_donky

Fri, 2012-07-13 13:52 — Alexis Dalrymple (not verified)

It's a fine line between taking it seriously and appearing glib. A line that I think O2 trod on the right side of. It fitted in well with it' brand. Also the humorous tweets were generally in response to poor behaviour and to be honest the funny responses were a drop in the ocean to the number of other "we're really sorry" tweets.

This did put a human face on O2 and conveyed that they were having a bad day and doing the best to fix things for their customers. However, it could have backfired but it didn't because it came across as genuine, unscripted and not 'annoyed with my customers* don'ttheyunderstand' - *who incidentally are not always right....

@adalrymple

Fri, 2012-07-13 12:34 — Seangp (not verified)

Nonsense. I'd much rather have this than the same rehashed, insincere, PR-written corporate apologies we're used to.

Fri, 2012-07-13 17:30 — Chris Owen (not verified)

maybe - please note, i'm not saying this approach is not without merit; i genuinely like the tone and personality, but i'm not convinced the biggest network outage in the company history is the time to wheel out the smart-alec humour.

as per my reply to G MAN above, I'm in no way advocating abuse towards brands online, and i think that there is a huge role for character, real people and non-corporate speak in online engagement with consumers - absolutely. I just don't think it was 'then'.

if the banks had been so jovial, i doubt people would have seen the funny side quite so much. anyway, each to their own.

Chris

Fri, 2012-07-13 10:32 — sarah mcnally (not verified)

love this! it's a phone signal, not the end of the world, and the abuse 02 got! Took is so well! People don't know how to respond to comedy like that and it diffuses the situation much better than corporate spiel.

Fri, 2012-07-13 10:14 — DavroC83 (not verified)

Orange could learn a thing or two from them - they never respond to my abuse!

Fri, 2012-07-13 09:45 — Dan Siron (not verified)

Anyone who enjoys the "off piste" Twitter feeds of companies should take a look at @betfairpoker. Even if you are not into poker or gambling, the genius who runs the Twitter feed is amazingly creative. @danno375