O2's Twitter team make people laugh

While O2's call centre staff were congratulating themselves on a day of no complaints on Wednesday - just why was no-one phoning? - the company's social media people were working overtime following its nationwide network outage.

With thousands of customers seething at having no signal for much of Wednesday and Thursday morning, it was the responsibility of the @O2 in the UK Twitter account to appease their anger.

Customers' genuine concerns were interspersed with the predicable onslaught of poorly-constructed obscenities and unabashed abuse, but rather than ignoring the latter, or responding using rigid corporate social media guidelines, O2 let its team retort how they saw fit - with wit, humour and a deft touch.

Aside from the gem above, here are a couple of my favourites:

• Graham Cummings: @O2 FUCK YOU! SUCK DICK IN HELL.
• O2: @grahamcummings7 Maybe later, got tweets to send right now. 

• Ashley Roberts: Oh @O2 have said sorry. Nice. So when I don't pay my bill for another month will a sorry do? How about arse-fucking your mothers you twats?" 
• O2: @AshleyRoberts61 She says no thanks.