Apparently an organizational shift has occurred within the ranks at BellSouth, and the new management no longer approves of some technicians offering support in our BellSouth forum. As of December 31, many BellSouth employees will not be allowed to lend a hand in any official capacity. It's a growing trend among several of the larger providers, who believe that lending such assistance is more of a liability than an asset.

Offering official tech support via public forums and newsgroups has allowed some ISP's to portray a more accessible image. In a 'Walmartized' business world that grows ever more impersonal and sterile each year, the web offers ISP's another conduit for personal contact with what used to be the most important part of a business relationship....the customer.

PR issues aside, a public forum presence lessens the impact on call centers. With forums, a quick search usually un-earths someone who experienced your precise problem, offering a painless resolution and a bounty of technical advice. No hold times, and no recently hired, techno-deficient call center employees painfully stumbling over a support script like a teen pop idol taking his first stab at Shakespeare.

More personal than a website faq or a half an hour on hold, tech-savvy forum reps can eliminate small problems before they become monstrous ones, saving everyone involved time and money. Better yet, many are doing so on their own time, costing the company not one red cent. Sounds good, right?

Not necessarily.

Companies naturally fear litigation, and dislike not being able to sanitize and spin information before it reaches the ears and eyes of their customers. Particularly horrifying to them is the idea of out-sourced or third party support reps acting as vessels of the corporate gospel. So instead of spending twenty minutes drafting clear corporate policy on public forum relations protocol, some companies clamp down on such activities; sometimes brutally.

One Cox communications technician managed to solve a nagging loss of sync problem faced by a customer last spring in our Cox forum. Instead of a pat on the back, he wound up receiving a phone call from a manager in another district he'd never even met, threatening his job security if he didn't stop posting. Comcast has likewise cast a disapproving eye on technicians offering a lending hand, many of whom have deleted their accounts for fear of being singled out and admonished.

According to one ex-Roadrunner employee we spoke to, they were fired for violating a non-existent public forum non-disclosure agreement, and for identifying themselves as a Roadrunner employee in our forums. They were also accused of "divulging information that was sensitive to the company", despite the fact that the majority of the posts contained harmless support tips available via the company's technical support department.

After a protracted legal battle (one can't break rules that don't exist), the employee was reinstated, only to be fired again four months later for a minor infraction. Roadrunner was particularly displeased with an informal customer satisfaction poll placed on the employee's personal website.

"I threatened legal intervention which was what motivated them to realize the "error of their ways", notes the employee. "They showed me examples of posts that had common knowledge stuff contained within them, but they really didn't like the fact that I identified myself as one of their techs....The thing about that was, it didn't violate any written or unwritten rules that the company had or the out-source company had."

With no written guidelines for behavior within newsgroups or message boards, can companies honestly expect their employees to know where the lines are drawn? Are the companies themselves even sure where the lines are drawn?

Qwest also recently tightened the reigns on their technicians. Instead of being rewarded for going the extra mile to answer questions, they were scolded for "representing Qwest without authorization". With a bleak job market in the telecom sector, employees aren't willing to risk their livelihoods, no matter how noble the original intent.

When Kirk Rafferty, CEO of Colorado-based Fairplay Communications, was recently interviewed by Newsfactor, he identified customer service as being the only areas in which small David ISP's could dominate Goliath competitors. That ideology appears to ring true with companies like Covad, Speakeasy, and Optimum On-line who all maintain sizeable and successful forum presences.

But not all of the telcos and larger providers are clamping down on such activity. SBC recently announced they would be offering official support in several of our forums. The employees seem dedicated toward making such a relationship work, the customers are happy, and the company gets a PR boost.

Does that sound like something to be afraid of?

If you'd like to voice your opinion on BellSouth's decision, you can contact them via their website, which also lists a wide variety of corporate contacts. You can also participate in this thread in our BellSouth forum.