A Conversation with Frank Eliason: @ComcastCares and the Birth of Social Customer Service

Frank Eliason is Senior Vice President of Social Media at Citibank, and author of @YourService.

Frank became renowned for his pioneering work at Comcast in bringing customer service to the social web under the @ComcastCares Twitter handle. This work has been recognized by many news organizations, including ABC News, New York Times, and Business Week.

Frank recently joined Social: IRL Principal Ben Smith, and Expion VP of Strategy, Zena Weist, for Smart Social, an ongoing series of conversations with leaders and innovators in social business.

Parts one and two of the conversation with Frank are embedded below. The remainder of the conversation will be shared in a later post.

Audio podcasts are also available via SoundCloud and iTunes..

In part one of this interview via Google Hangout, Frank shares the backstory of how @ComcastCares came about and social customer service was born.

.In part two of the interview, Frank shares events from July 26, 2008, and his realization about the more personalized nature of the social media space – “human connections, not brand messaging.”