It's a tough call on Twitter customer support: There's been some great success stories and campaigns (see:DELL), but you can't really do much more than help fun

It's a tough call on Twitter customer support: There's been some great success stories and campaigns (see:DELL), but you can't really do much more than help funnel people through your existing channels: "Sorry about your problem, e-mail support at xxx," and everytime you do that publicly, you're pointing those who do follow you to things going wrong. It takes a special skill and dedicated employee to do right, which may or may not result in a net payoff. The thing that bothers me more about Twitter support is how all the sudden companies are expected to using one private protocol as an "official" channel, when it's a protocol they don't own nor control. Nobody blames their local grocery for not using AT&T instead of Verizon for their support calls, but all the sudden you're not on Twitter, Facebook, and GetSatisfaction (all private companies), and "you don't listen to your customers," even if you have a bevy of other avenues. Does this bug anyone else?