Last weekend I went to PSA11 and stayed at The Hilton Hotel in Coventry. What could have been an irritating incident actually became a lesson in excellent customer care.

On arrival in my room I discovered there was no soap in the bathroom and I was told that it wouldn’t be replenished until the next day. Feeling a bit miffed I tweeted the following:

“Can't believe #Hilton Coventry have NO soap stock left! Apparently it will be here tomorrow! Who's in charge of stock control I wonder”

Imagine my surprise when less than half an hour later this came back from @HiltonOnline:

“@LesleyEverett We apologize for the inconvenience and are looking into this matter. A follow up e-mail has been sent to the e-mail address listed on your reservation.”

This proves that not only do The Hilton Group care and respond to what is being said about them on Social media, but they are also actively monitoring the use of their name (as I hadn’t used their @ twitter handle), responding almost instantly and following up. Which they did when I thanked them on twitter for sorting the problem. Even more impressive when you realise that the service is run from the USA, and they had emailed and tweeted me.

It’s not the first time I have had this kind of response - KLM also sorted a flight problem for me when I commented about it on twitter.

It is such a simple thing and so short sighted of service companies not to monitor what is being said about them. After all I’m certainly not the only person who complains about service on twitter. In fact sadly, it is far more common to see complaints than it is comments about good service.

However, I did complement the Old Swan and Minster Inn last week. I tweeted a very positive comment about checking in and the fantastic first impression. Had they been monitoring their brand they could have made the impression even better by the manager or somebody coming to greet us, or maybe a card in room to thank us for the comments. I would have then tweeted again!

All these examples show that companies who monitor social media can have a massive advantage over others that don't. They have the opportunity to put right an issue immediately and as we know it's all about HOW a problem is handled rather than the problem itself.

As a business partner Mark Copeman says on his Customer Thermometer website (a simple but powerful tool designed to get immediate customer feedback):

“If you know what your customers are thinking (and knowledge is power), you have a fighting chance of fixing it... more importantly, by identifying the current mood of all your customers, you are in the strongest possible position to manage them effectively...”  Monitoring shows “that you want to improve continually. That you want to put customers at the heart of your business.”

And putting customers at the heart of your business is what customer service is all about.