US Patent 8943145 Customer support via social network

A method to provide customer support including searching a social network server for a pre-determined customer support keyword in social network messages, to obtain information of a social network message sender where the pre-determined customer support keyword identifies a need of the sender for customer support, automatically sending a surrogate social network message to the sender including an offer to obtain customer support via a customer support link embedded in the surrogate social network message, and presenting customer support information to the sender in response to the sender activating the customer support link upon receiving the surrogate social network message and accepting the offer.