Companies respond quickly via social media

In Letters, Issue 509, Stephen Perkin asks which companies ignore customers sending messages via ‘Contact us’ forms online. I wouldn’t know anymore, because I’ve stopped using them. In the early days of the internet it seemed like these forms were the only way to contact a company, and you would often wait days, sometimes weeks, for a response. These messages were probably filed under ‘ignore’. In the end you were forced in frustration to phone them up, only to spend countless minutes on hold.

But that was before Facebook and Twitter. It’s far harder for companies to ignore messages on these sites because what you write can be seen by other people. The only reason I use these sites is to get in touch with companies and organisations. They almost always respond within a couple of hours.

I would like to know what Computeractive’s policy is. Do you prefer to be contacted on social media, or by email? Adam Schofield

CA says That’s a good question. For enquiries that may involve personal details – subscription questions for example – we prefer emails because they are private. We can’t discuss subscription details via social media.

But if you have a non-personal question that could be answered quickly, then you can try our Twitter account (@ Computeractive) or Facebook page ( www.facebook.com/computeractive). If you’d like help from our Problems Solved team, email noproblem@computeractive. co.uk. They can’t reply personally, but do consider every problem for publication in a forthcoming issue.

We check our emails, and our social media accounts, regularly every working day, and try to respond quickly. My nomination for sites that don’t respond is Avanquest Software. It hasn’t responded to my four emails sent to the email address infouk@avanquest. com, requesting help regarding my Driver

Genius licence. I also sent an email to sales@driver-soft.com regarding my problem. Customer support appears to be non-existent. Fred Friend

I share Stephen Perkin’s frustration at failing to receive a response from a company’s ‘contact us’ pages. This is what I do. I email the CEO of the company concerned, having tracked them down using www.ceoemail.com, and tell them how disappointed I am to have not received a response. If you can’t find the CEO’S email address, simply find out who they are via Google and then add their name as a prefix to the company’s email address, eg john.smith@widgets.co.uk. It has never yet failed to elicit a response! Bryan Mcalley