Twitter is becoming an increasingly popular with businesses and companies as a platform for offering customer service. The following are some guidelines for using Twitter to offer effective customer service.
1. Show off your brand
Don’t make the mistake of using your personal profile to promote your brand or answer questions about your business. Instead, create a business profile complete with your logo as well as your business name. Apart from responding to feedback received, you can use your business profile to tweet special updates about your business, comment on recent developments in your industry and give special offers to followers.
2. Offer solutions quickly
If you come across a tweet where someone is complaining about your service or product, make sure you respond right away. Offer your apologies for the problem and ask the commentator to shed more light on the issue. Encourage them to contact you directly by email. This will enable you to respond more comprehensively, since the Twitter limit of 140 characters is not sufficient. Once you get to the bottom of the matter, you could consider offering the complainer a free gift or a voucher. If you respond in a helpful and swift manner, the complainer might be appeased and in return tweet about how happy they are with your business.
3. Keep track of conversations
Create search alerts which will enable you to keep track of discussions about your business, brand or industry. Don’t just sit back and wait to receive questions directly. Since most Twitter messages are accessible by the public, you can easily contribute to discussions about your product or business. Create push notifications which will keep you informed whenever anyone tweets to you directly. This will enable you to respond fast wherever you are, even using your mobile phone.
4. Make use of tools which enhance customer service
In case you want to give other people the responsibility of managing your Twitter business account, you can create several user profiles using tools like HootSuite. Tools like Twitalyzer can be used to check your daily reader stats, while search results can be monitored using a service such as Monitter.
5. Offer value
Instead of just reacting to comments and complaints, make sure your Twitter business account offers value to prospective and existing customers. Share news, discounts and tips. Once in a while, participate in conversations without mentioning your business or brand. The more value your account offers, the more your followers will increase.