When I’m talking to clients about whether they should use Twitter, one of the most effective pitches is how it can be used to offer better customer service tool. As we’ve seen from companies such as Dell and Comcast, Twitter can be a great way to deal with problems and complaints, while providing advice, help and suggestions.
As Twitter gains traction as a customer service tool, consumers are realized it is also an effective platform to talk about their unhappiness with a company, product or service.
Not surprisingly, this is forcing many companies to get on the Twitter bandwagon.
Of course, it makes complete sense for consumer-facing companies to be on Twitter, if only to offer better customer service. It’s a great way to talk to customers rather than making them write a letter or e-mail, or call customer service.
In many cases, a conversation on Twitter can quickly resolve any problems, turning a potentially bad situation into a happy customer.
For more on Twitter’s emergence as a customer service tool, check out today’s Toronto Star. As well, Chromatic has a good post about seven situations in which companies used Twitter to “go above and beyond customers and clients using micro-blogging”.
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Hi Mark, this is more anecdotal than quantitative but I monitor #rogers, #telus and #bell because of my passion for things mobile. There are significantly more positive comments on #rogers since Rogers hired a social media team.
I don't think that proactive online customer service is Twitter's "killer app".
I do think that customer support for traditional business needs to extend beyond customer support email addresses. Successful customer support is quickly switching from a passive, "contact us" approach to "how can we help". From this perspective, the companies that excel in this new era of support will define processes and support teams to actively engage customer support across existing and emerging networks, not just Twitter.
I don't think that proactive online customer service is Twitter's "killer app".
I do think that customer support for traditional business needs to extend beyond customer support email addresses. Successful customer support is quickly switching from a passive, "contact us" approach to "how can we help". From this perspective, the companies that excel in this new era of support will define processes and support teams to actively engage customer support across existing and emerging networks, not just Twitter.
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[...] see an entrepreneur somewhere making a fortune on the combination of Twitter and customer service. Twitterrati has even called customer service the killer app of [...]