Using twitter for customer support

Twitter is the web’s buzzword (killer app?) of 2009. It enables anyone to micro-blog – post comments up to 140 characters in length (called tweets) – and to follow other people to read what they are commenting about. A big differentiator between Twitter and other social networking applications is that you can “tweet” from your mobile phone by sending a plain old text message. This means that you can be in a park and tell the world (or your followers) that you are enjoying a 99 flake from your ancient Nokia 5110 while the rest of us are pretending to do work (but actually twittering ourselves). No laptop, internet connection, or iphone/blackberry thing required. Yeah we can access Facebook from our phones, but texts are free.

Some commentators are saying that Twitter has reached critical mass. The media can’t get enough of it, suddenly we all know what Stephen Fry had for lunch, my friend’s cat just fell out the window (ground floor), yadder yadder. Oh, and for businesses – it’s a powerful way of networking, engaging in the community and so on…

After a slow start I’m getting into Twitter, not least of all because I am seeing first hand how switched on companies are using it to provide customer support. A couple of weeks ago I posted a tweet that I was evaluating the online accounting software services FreeAgent and Xero. Soon after I received tweets from support staff at both companies saying thanks for looking and if you need any help we’re here to help. Funnily enough, a couple of competitors also started following me.

Why is this any different to using the company’s support forums? Because I don’t have to register or go looking for them, and the conversation is in the middle of the information super highway (the old name for the Internet) where anyone can see it, not just those users on the company support forum. In some respects it’s not dissimilar to online portals like getsatisfaction.com – except that everyone following my tweets is also in on my experience…

Research has long shown that when a customer has a bad experience with a product of service, they will tell an average of 10 friends and family about it (the number varies a little depending on the industry). But if they’re sharing their thoughts on Twitter, how many are they reaching now?

In our UK Customer Care Survey last year, just 5% of respondents who reported they had a problem with a product or service said that they discussed their experience online (in a chat room, on a forum or in a blog). Twitter makes it easier for people to discuss their experience online so it will be interesting to see by how much that 5% figure increases. The thing about Twitter is that users don’t just post what they’re doing, but what they’re thinking as well: love my new laptop, nice tune, shoddy workmanship, crap customer service, evil company…

Do a search in Twitter for any big company, say an energy or telecoms company and I bet you are seeing people complaining about waiting times, being on hold, inaccurate invoices and “being shafted”. Twitter is a data source rich with information – potentially better than price comparison websites or Amazon’s product reviews. I think the big thing will be its search – for example, how can the ordinary user mine the millions of comments to find out what others think of a particular Linksys ADSL wireless router? The switched on, customer-focused organisations are tracking their brands and products today (simply by searching Twitter) to get an uptodate customer view.

The really switched on, customer focused organisations might dare to engage with these customers through Twitter too.

Twitter is only another channel for communicating and it isn’t going to replace phone, email or support forums anytime soon. And it’s a challenge to help customers with only 140 characters. Yet if companies can address their customers’ questions (or problems) promptly (and publicly) this can only increase their satisfaction and loyalty. A good thing surely…