I opened TweetDeck yesterday and immediately saw a tweet from someone I didn’t know, raving about the customer service that they received from a particular brand. The tweet itself had been retweeted by a friend, which is how it ended up in my stream.

The company he was talking about was not one I had heard of before, and I’m not likely to buy their products. But I clicked the tweet to check out the image that was attached to it. And then I saw this tweet (I’m paraphrasing, not looking to call out the individual):

“They do have great products and customer service! Their customer service could be even greater if they used [name of customer service related software].”

I thought that was kind of odd. Here you have a great example of perfect customer service and someone tells them they can do better by using software. I wonder if the person who said this is affiliated with the software? I opened the Twitter bio and, sure enough, they work at the software company.

Please don’t do this.

When I see someone do this, it shifts my perspective of that company. Fair or not.

Person #1: “My friend is really great!”

Person #2: “You know what would make your friend better? ME!”

Yikes.

As I write, the tweet where the employee mentioned their company has not been replied to once. It has not been retweeted. It has not been favorited. It has not been interacted with. That is not a massive surprise.

I doubt this person is part of any kind of formal employee advocacy program (though he might be), but if he worked for me, I’d have a word with him because that isn’t how I want to be represented. In fact, this has happened before and I have done exactly that. Even if you don’t have a formal program, you can provide your employees with some guidance on how to mention your company when they are using their personal profiles.

If a company does something great, don’t inject your company into their story. No, their customer service would not necessarily be better if they used your software. Obviously, judging from the tweet, they seem to know what they are doing. They do not – do not – need you. And if you want to pitch them, you can do it privately.