ABC Nightly News Tuesday reported on the fast growing popularity of Twitter and its use for, among all things, getting better customer service.   Dell was mentioned in this piece as being one of the few major companies today taking a proactive approach by getting involved on Twitter as a way to help customers and learn more about what the community out there is saying.  And Jeremiah Owyang mentioned us in his post where I'm glad to see him asking the Twitter community to go easy on Exxon Mobil (@ExxonMobilCorp) as they get things going there.

I know Lionel and others on the team are pretty passionate about Twitter. I've been on Twitter for a few months now myself, as just an average person, trying to understand it's appeal.  I follow my friends, coworkers, even Andy Lark (which of course leads me to his blog) and sometimes these folks follow me.  At first, I thought it was a bit absurd to see updates from others that held no true revelance to me, but sometimes made me chuckle.

After seeing ABC's report, however, I got to thinking.  "I wonder if I search on Twitter by 'computer repair' if I could find a community of computer technicians talking about their needs or just talking about what they find interesting?" I wasn't even sure until two days ago if Twitter could make it possible....but, indeed, the Captains of Tweet came through. 

You can find me on Twitter as @KatieFromDell.  The majority of computer technicians I follow, and who follow me, are very small businesses.  But they have needs, too, and are really engaged in what KatieFromDell wants to learn from them or what Dell has to offer. 

In one of my first jobs out of grad school, a sales consultant named Jeffrey Fox (who wrote, How to Become A Rainmaker) came to my company and gave us some insight on how to close a sale.  The biggest lesson I learned from Fox, "always ask your customer questions.  Never assume you know what they want."

So far, Twitter has been a great way for our group to learn more about computer repair needs.  And, it's only been a few days for us.