HootSuite-proficient marketers are easily able to monitor the entire world of Twitter for complaints, comments or questions about their brands. But how many of these brands actually use Twitter as a medium for interacting with customers?

A few months ago I thought Twitter was passé, but I have since realized that this is not the case. Many big (and small!) brands use Twitter to post daily messages, promotions, and random tidbits. How many of these brands actually pay attention to what people are saying about them? How many have customer service agents waiting and ready to reply?

I did a quick bit of research to investigate, and found a 50/50 split. Over the past few months I personally tweeted at four separate companies: 1) Canadian Tire, 2) Haagen-Dazs, 3) Spotify, and 4) Hilton. All of my tweets had specific questions about the company/product/service.

The Results: Canadian Tire and Haagen-Dazs offered no reply. Was my message not important enough to warrant a response? Maybe it was clear that I was not (at the time of the tweet) using or purchasing a product from them. Maybe they filter by Klout score and I just wasn’t influential enough to be heard.

Spotify and Hilton, however, responded to my tweets – and in a timely manner! With Spotify I was troubleshooting, and looking for help from a human. Even though I tweeted @SpotifyCanada, it was @SpotifyCares who responded first. Clearly they monitor even other accounts. I got help within 24 hours and engaged in a two-way conversation with a friendly fellow whose name started with Z.

After reading this article about Hilton and monitoring social media I wanted to put them to the test as well. While I was staying at the Hilton last week I used Twitter to send comments and make inquiries. They did not disappoint. Their corporate digital strategy is on point, and revolves around hospitality, as I was responded to professionally and within the day.

After my testing, I would definitely rank Spotify and Hilton higher on the “customer service” and “how-much-do-I-like-this-brand” scales, where before I would have considered myself neutral. High fives to their teams on doing a good job of making the customer feel important.