POLL: How Do You Rate @Twitter’s Technical Support?

On every occasion that I have needed to contact Twitter support, and on the occasions I have encouraged others to do so, Twitter has NEVER responded.

In a word, TERRIBLE!! I've got a problem and I can't even find a link in the support area to contact someone. They provide tons of information on other problems that you can refer to. However, if your problem isn't listed, you're out of luck.

Non-existent! I submitted two support tickets. Both were closed with NO contact to me. And my questions remain unanswered!

Well, here's another experience with support. My other Twitter account is filling up with dozens of blocked spammers. I asked Twitter if this was part of the follow/unfollow issue, or a new "feature", or what. My ticket was open for two days, then closed with no comments at all. I want to know how long I'm going to have almost 30 spammers listed as blocked followers. It's getting impossible to use my followers list in any meaningful way. I think it was a valid question and there needs to be some kind of response. How long are we supposed to put up with being unable to block spammers? Seriously?

Twitter had suspended my account on May 17th. I submitted a help ticket, per their instructions. June 4th, I got an automated reply, and at the bottom it said, "Please do not reply to this email unless you need to contest a current suspension." I replied to the email, no response. Their FAQ on suspended accounts say to email suspended@twitter.com if no response to support ticket. It also said that accounts can be suspended for a minimum of 30 days. So, June 17 I emailed em. And got an automated response, wanting me to explain why I was contacting them (already did that, so I just copy/pasted my original message.) A few hours later, I finally got a REAL PERSON to respond and unsuspend my account.

I've never had any reply whenever I've reported spam (are we supposed to hear back?) consequently, I can't always be bothered and just block undesirables. I'm not filled with confidence regarding Twitter's tech support after the Britney/Horny whatsit saga that went on for ages...

They kept me in Twitter Jail for 38 days. Their stated reason was that I'd given my ID and password to a naughty third-party application that caused repeated tweets, but (a) they would not name that application and (b) those repeated tweets did not appear in my timeline.

I had to write them about 15 times before they would act. And I'm not sure my writing them did any good at all. They kept sending me links to information for newbies. I may not be Oprah, but my modest 2500 followers should at least suggest I'm not a newbie.

The fact is, only people like Oprah GET customer service.

After 16 days: "Awaiting assignment to a help desk operator." Says it all really.

Ok, it's not about "technical" support exactly. It's about abuse, harassment and defamation - in other words, help to restrain or shut down someone who had been and still is systematically attacking my friends.

I understand twitter might hesitate to act based on freedom of speech. Its lawyers might even seek to make a public utility argument, positioning their client as a common carrier rather than for legal purposes a publisher, and therefore not liable for defamatory content. I think it's fully liable and one of these days someone with sufficiently deep pockets will want to make that case in the courts.

But this wouldn't even have to be looked at as a defamation matter if twitter enforced its Terms of Use. The gent I've complained about is in clear violation of at least two provisions.

But even this isn't really the issue because twitter hasn't even assigned my complaint to someone who could look into it. That's over two weeks of damage to the victims' reputations.

"Terrible" doesn't even begin to describe this.

Rant over.

I have never yet received any support from them. I usually get help via the board from tweeters - i.e. Sheamus, Mashable.

I'd say about average, I cant recall any bad issues I've had using the service and I've never had the need to contact the peeps behind the scenes, so I've got nothing to gauge there responses to how I feel things might be done.

Like many networks, it loses points in terms of responding to user complaints. When a large number of people experience and report a problem (in this case with hundreds of @ replies to @twitter and @spam, and the use of #twitterfail), the proper thing to do is to post a message saying, "Hey, we see there's a problem. We're on it. Please be patient." Even if there is no solution, just saying, "Yeah, we got your message and we know there's a problem," goes a long way to keep people from getting fed up. Yes, I'm talking about spam blocking being broken. Yes, I know it's related to the follow/unfollow lag. However, most people would consider the ability to block porn/spam to be different (and more important) than just unfollowing. The fact that for the second time (their first post about the lag was on June 18th) that they have failed to mention blocking at all (how hard would it have been to say follow/unfollow/block instead of just follow/unfollow?) is just BAD CUSTOMER SERVICE, period. Support tickets regarding this issue are simply marked as closed. The one I put in before the June 18 post got a "Eh? We don't see anything broken," reply, which suggested they had not noticed or bothered to see that Twitter was filling up with annoyed messages tagged #twitterfail or addressed to @twitter and @spam that mentioned the problem explicitly.