Since its introduction 14 years ago, Twitter has remained a valuable customer support channel for many companies. Its real-time nature lets them respond to customer concerns and complaints. But many businesses still struggle to take advantage of the platform for the task. To help you out, let us explore some strategies on how to dispense Twitter customer support better.
The challenge of Twitter customer support
While using Twitter itself is simple, it does come with challenges for sustained customer engagement. Understanding what these challenges are and finding ways to overcome them will help businesses create an effective customer support strategy on the platform.
Limited space
Twitter has already increased its character limit from 140 characters to 280 but customer support agents still find its short format a challenge. This is particularly the case when providing lengthier explanations to customers. Here, agents need to effectively coordinate their tweets to create a more sustained conversation with customers.
Embedded media can also help increase the information your tweets provide. But you still have to strategize on how to use this. Here, you have to carefully choose which type of media to use to convey what you want to say.
A larger number of customer service requests
The relative ease at which customers can reach you out on Twitter creates a problem in itself. Once people know that you have a Twitter account, they will likely rush in with their request for assistance. And since they want an immediate response on the platform, your customer support team will undoubtedly feel the pressure.
As such, you should be adept at handling such a large amount of requests. You need to be able to categorize each support request and respond quickly. Additionally, you should know how to effectively direct some of these requests to other platforms for better responses.
Constant exposure
Like any other social media platforms, your correspondence with customers on Twitter is often visible to the public. Thus, everyone will see any missteps here. And this has the potential to blow up quickly, given how the Internet tends to react.
To deal with this, you need to have a definite response plan. These include pleasing customers right on the platform. You need to diffuse the wider audience\’s reaction as quickly as possible to avoid a negative backlash.
Improving your Twitter customer support efforts
The first thing that you need to deal with these challenges is a clear customer support plan for the platform. Define how the customer journey should go on Twitter. Think about how you are going to keep track of the various concerns your customers post on the platform.
Creating internal and external policies
From there, you need to consider how you will respond. You need to create both internal and external policies. For the former, specifically outline how your team will respond to tweets that are:
- Time-sensitive
- Containing complaints
- Have delicate subject matters
Each of these requires a different approach to ensure proper resolution. By giving your team guidelines, they can decide better on how to approach particular cases. Set the rules on whether to continue the conversation on Twitter or move it offline. These rules are vital as customers would often want their issues resolved without going to different platforms.
For your external policy, be clear to customers about what they can expect when reaching out to you on Twitter. Indicate your business hours on your profile, so they when would be the best time to tweet to you. You would also want to give them a time estimate for responses for their benefit.
Assigning responsibility
It is also important to assign the responsibility of handling customer concerns on Twitter to the right agents. A common issue businesses encounter is when responses to customers get mixed due to different agents running the same account. Organizing the customer support agents who will handle Twitter makes it easier to keep track of which agent is currently in control of the account and coordinate with them about customer inquiries.
This strategy also allows you to personalize your customer service on Twitter more. Letting your agents attach their names on tweets, like the one above, tells customers who exactly they are talking with. That helps them connect better with your brand when they communicate with the actual people behind it.
It is also a good idea to create a separate Twitter handle solely for customer support. This further segments the messages you receive, making it easier for agents to respond to support requests. Be sure to inform customers of these accounts to help them know which one to use for their concerns.
Twitter customer support: responding to tweets
Trying to respond to each customer tweet can be a daunting challenge, especially if you are receiving hundreds every day. One useful strategy to better handle these is by creating response templates. Your agents can use these templates to quickly reply to some of the usual tweets and get them out of the way faster.
To build your set of templates, collect the most common questions coming from your customers. You then create the answers and associated responses that your agents should use. Compile these in an easily accessible format for your team to use quickly.
Make these canned responses feel less robotic by encouraging agents to modify them as they see fit. For example, they can shorten these responses to make way for their explanations. That helps them be more comfortable in talking with customers through tweets.
Bringing the conversation offline
At some point, you might need to bring the customer support conversation out of the public space of your Twitter profile to a more private one. It might be either due to the sensitive nature of the topic or simply because you can help them resolve issues faster offline. For this, you would want to make the most out of using Direct Messages.
One useful strategy here is to respond to @mentions with a DM. Such a move delivers a strong message to your customers that you are ready to help them out. Additionally, this gives them more freedom to talk about their concerns.
Keep in mind that when you send a direct message to customers, you should also be ready to respond to theirs quickly. Typically, you would want to respond to those messages within an hour or so. Additionally, try to resolve the issue within a few back and forth messages as possible.
Twitter customer support: responding to feedback
As mentioned earlier, Twitter makes it easier for customers to provide feedback about your customer service in public. By responding to this feedback in the right way, you project a more positive image of your brand. That not only encourages customers to return but also attracts more customers.
Responding to positive feedback might be the simpler one to accomplish, but you still need to be enthusiastic about it. Acknowledge the favorable tweets you get and thank customers for their support. You would also want to mention specific users on your tweets, which is something that they will like.
Negative feedback
With negative feedback, you would want to respond to the user as quickly as possible. Be ready to admit your fault on the matter the customer is having an issue and offer an apology. Cordially ask them what you can do for them to feel better.
And you do need to make sure to accomplish these promises. Treat these as a legitimate complaint and get your team assisting the customer. You can also use this feedback as an opportunity to see what you can improve in your service. Once you satisfy people, their negative feedback will become positive, boosting your image more.
Turn Twitter into a potent customer support channel
Doing Twitter customer support is by no means easy. You will often run into a wide variety of problems that require similarly varied solutions. But by following the strategies above, you can better manage these customer concerns and respond to them more efficiently. Incorporate these strategies into your customer service protocols and boost your support capabilities with the platform.