I may be wrong but I think this is the start of a seismic shift in tech support from Microsoft…and maybe the industry. Don’t get me wrong, existing support channels such as Premier and support.microsoft.com aren’t going away but with the entrance of @MicrosoftHelps we’re seeing Microsoft not just dip a toe but put both feet in to using Twitter as an official support channel – in this case for Windows 7. The team is already providing answers to many FAQ’s and links to useful sites both on Microsoft.com and partner sites.

Robin Wauters covered this on Techcrunch yesterday and was very complimentary about the service. Of course, we’re not the first company to use Twitter for support so no claims of a revolution here but for Microsoft and our customers, I genuinely think this is a big bold step. Hats off to the team and good luck with it.

As a side note, they’re using a process to identify which of the team members has responded given this is a team Twitter account – something I hadn’t seen before.