Twitter Customer Service

In times like today, social media has become the powerhouse and most successful form of communication between businesses and customers. The platform that can provide the most engagement between these two users is Twitter. According to esrc.ukri.org Twitter is a ‘microblogging’ system that allows you to send and receive short posts called tweets”. The leading reason as to why customers would rather go through Twitter than any other social media platform is because it is quick and short. There is no need to fill out a 6 page sheet about why you contacted the company and how many times your food was undercooked, it can all be settled within a 140 character tweet. The most successful businesses are the ones that utilize Twitter to its fullest potential.

Stage 1

There are three different levels of customer service on Twitter. The first level is when the company is mentioned directly. A customer will tweet at the company with an issue that they are having and expect a reply from the company within a reasonable amount of time. Here is a positive example with Amazon.

This is an example of a first level customer service engagement. The company was directly mentioned and they responded in a very interactive and human way. Amazon was also able to respond is a reasonable amount of time, they answered same day, just 3 hours later. Unfortunately not every company can be perfect. Here is another example from Amazon of a customer who did not receive a response from Amazon.

A huge company like Amazon receives thousands or even millions of tweets at them everyday. It is unfortunate that they can’t reply to every customer but that is something important that the company will have to overcome in order to become even more successful.

Stage 2

Stage two of Twitter customer Service is when a company resolves an issue when they are mentioned but the customer did not include the @. An example of this is with Lululemon.

This is an example of a company being mentioned in the tweet but they aren’t directly tagged in the tweet. The way that Lululemon handled this situation was appropriate and genuine. The customer tweets about how expensive the product is, so instead of Lululemon ignoring or lashing back at the customer, they respond with their clearance website. They also responded in the same day which is another helpful customer service step. On the other hand, there are companies out there who may be mentioned in a tweet and decide to ignore it for reasons unknown. An example of a company like this is Adobe.

This customer was experiencing some issues with their adobe system and they mentioned the company in their tweet without the handle and they received no Adobe engagement at all. This can be harmful to the companies reputation because within the tweet the customer also complained about the adobe support system as well. I think that Adobe took a big hit to their customer service status because they did not interact with this customer.

Stage 3

The final stage of twitter customer service is stage 3. This stage focuses on customers tweeting about something that relates to a companies topic and a compamy decides to reply to it. An example of a comapany doing this is with Chipotle.

This customer subtweeted to Chipotle and instead of ignoring the tweet, Chipotle answers. The company was not directly mentioned in the customers tweet but it was indirectly tweeted at. Also Chipotle added a little human touch with signing the tweet with the customer service worker who wrote it. However not every company can interact or keep up with their customers in the shadows. Here is another missed opportunities from car renting companies.

This customer was looking to rent a car at a discounted price but they received no response. This was an opportunity that a car company like Enterprise could have jumped on and followed up with this person. They may not have had to acknowledge the coupon codes or discounted mention in the tweet but they certainly could have interacted with the renting of the car.

Using twitter as a customer service platform is one of the most engaging and uplifting things that a company can do. It is important that big companies interact with their consumers on every level of engagement because that is how they will build their business. During these struggling times I think more companies have the opportunity to reach out to their customers and research into what consumers are saying so that they can expand and create a better business.