Scott Monty mentioned in an email to me that Comcast has launched a customer service initiative on Twitter. Dubbed “Comcast Cares,” it seems that the effort is aimed at finding people who are tweeting their complaints about Comcast and offering to help. Whoever is leading the effort then engages in conversations with those to whom she or he is reaching out.

Reviewing the 21 pages of tweets from Comcast going back to April 6 reveals a long list of replies to individuals:

As with any company, the words need to be backed up with action, but if Comcast has taken a page from the Dell playbook, this could be an outstanding example of using social media to improve reputation through proactive customer service.

Twitter doesn’t have to be mainstream for this outreach effort to succeed. The word will spread from those who experience it. Using Twitter to seed word-of-mouth by taking genuine care of customers could be a brilliant move by a much maligned company.