Perhaps so. After all, even soap producers have 1-800 numbers, and apparently somebody is bored enough with life to call in sometimes.

Companies should, of course, answer questions and help out their customers who are having problems using Facebook and Twitter. In fact, do it right and you have most of what you should be doing on social media covered.

What is less clear is why basic customer service on Facebook or Twitter should be considered an improvement over doing it via phone or email. How much does the average corporation spend on CRM software? Is this software integrated with what they’re doing on Facebook and Twitter? Do they import the threads, file the data and have access to the people they replied to?