Customer Service through Twitter

You could be offering school and office

furniture like lunchroom tables or selling electronics such as audio-visual

equipment. No matter what the product may be, customer service is

naturally an essential part of any type of business.

Your relationship with the customer doesn’t end at the purchase, not if you want to continue building your brand

and sustain your business. Communication tools play an important role here, and one

particular social media platform called Twitter can enhance this aspect of

your operations.

Twitter Advantages

This online social networking service is categorized as micro-blogging. Just like blogs, it’s a channel for anyone to express their opinions and share

information except that you’re limited to short text messages.

As an online marketing channel,

companies use it to post their profiles and reach out to their target audience. Those very same features provide advantages that can enable businesses to cultivate relationships with their customers and manage a positive experience of their brand.

• Quick response – Customer service is essentially about solving problems and a critical factor here is how quickly you can respond. Phone and email are the traditional channels of communication

used for customer support. These channels can be slow, however, when compared to how fast your messages can get to your customers via Twitter.

• Immediate results – Your customers can just as quickly reply. This capacity

for immediate feedback is not only helpful in problem resolution, but can also boost your support team’s morale

and performance. They can immediately see how their assistance

made an impact on customers.

• Lower costs – Twitter is not just free, but also easy to learn and deploy. This

makes it significantly more cost-effective than maintaining a call center’s services or training and equipping a traditional in-house customer service department.

A Few Twitter Pointers

While Twitter was never designed for the purpose of customer

service, its features easily lend itself to such an undertaking. Here

are a few tips on how to use the platform to implement customer

support.

You have to first make it known you’re using this particular social

media tool for problem resolution. Place a prominent button on your company’s website and post your

announcements with an encouragement to follow you on

Twitter.

1. Establish your presence on Twitter

Know when to send public @replies messages and when to use direct messages. DM’s allow you to send

more detailed explanations and can reduce clutter on your company’s

Twitter stream.

2. Learn the features

You can put the names of the support

staff on the business account, use a combined photo of your face and your company’s logo as an avatar, and end your messages with your actual first

name. All this brings the Twitter conversation closer to a personal interaction and helps build trust.

3. Personalize your approach

As you consistently provide great

customer support on Twitter, the social media itself serves as a platform that can spread stories of your excellent services. It creates a positive feedback loop that

improves brand experience and generates new leads.