This graduate student tweeted Aetna to clear $118,000 of medical bills — and it worked »

When Arijit Guha blasted Aetna on Twitter, it sparked a health care debate that got the insurer to cover all of his medical bills. […] The real social media coup came when Guha turned to Twitter. Using the handle @Poop_Strong on July 26, he fumed, “@Aetna has now denied $118k in claims (in just 5 mos) since kicking me to the curb. Gotta preserve that $2 billion annual profit somehow.” […] Surprisingly, @AetnaHealth replied: “@Poop_Strong We care about our members. We want you to be empowered to be healthy and make informed decisions.”

The phenomenon of people complaining publicly on Twitter and Facebook before even reaching out to customer service is becoming so wide that companies (from all most all trades and nature of business) have Twitter accounts specifically to deal with customer feedback, separate from their general public-facing accounts.

Fact is, complaining about some products and services using Twitter handles and hashtags is easier. And, frankly, anyone who’s ever dealt with customer service for a large company probably thinks they’ll get a response faster that way than if they went through regular channels. So, why wait on hold?