Intervene

I do appreciate that companies like AT&T do try to take on customer comments. In marketing, there is the rule that if a customer is upset about your service/product they will tell 10 people at least, whereas, if you have a good experience they will only tell 2-3 people. Telling 10 people about a bad experience can be a domino effect, those 10 people that you tell will tell their friends about your experience so on and so forth.
I really do think that companies taking on customer's input and responding in this day an age is the only way to go. With blogging, facebook, and other media there is no safe way to get away from bad media. Companies trying to regulate what gets posted can be done, but if someone wants their message heard, it will be heard. The benefits of intervening and responding to customers is that most people just want to feel that they have been heard, that their issue is significant. The downfall to intervening is that dirty laundry is out for the world to see and once it gets posted its out on the airwaves and internet forever.