Commentary

Twitter Is Not A Platform For Solving Customer Service Issues

Twitter/customer service

I was just struck by an offhand comment during audience Q&A following a panel discussion of social media and media planning here at MediaPost's fabulous (free!) OMMA Global conference in San Francisco: "You're not going to resolve customer service issues through Twitter. The best you can do is direct someone to a customer service phone number or something like that."

This simple observation summarizes one of the potential pitfalls of social media in general, and Twitter in particular: if you aren't fully equipped and staffed to handle customer complaints immediately -- and effectively -- the whole thing can blow up in your face.

Before, brands had to worry about unhappy customers making negative comments in the blogosphere -- which at least afforded a certain (virtual) distance between the brand and the forum where trash was being talked. This gave brands a certain latitude in when, where, and how they chose to respond to the complaints (if at all). But Twitter can bring the complaints, and the brand's response, much closer to the brand's official online presence, in a potentially more visible way -- leaving much less flexibility in terms of redress.

Basically, the hyper-public nature of the forum demands a response right away. But, Twitter is actually quite limited in terms of customer service: you really can't resolve a complex customer service issue in one 140-character post, or even a series of 140-character posts. So the other customer service channels -- here I'm thinking of customer service reps at call centers -- have to be revved up and ready to move quickly, with speed matching the Internet, to resolve the complaint.

Of course, this is easier said than done: how many times have you been passed around between call centers for an hour, as none of the call service reps seem quite sure how to resolve your problem, or even who is supposed to handle it? Now throw Twitter into the equation: if these other channels aren't fired up and ready to go, you get a situation in which each new travail and brand failure in an on-going complaint can be published, instantly, by the disgruntled customer on a high-visibility online platform -- while the other channels slowly go through the paces, probably unaware of the damage resulting from their business-as-usual approach. Any attempt to mitigate the damage via Twitter would just make the situation worse, highlighting the fact that the brand's left hand doesn't know what the right hand is doing (unless the customer service rep is the same person handling the Twitter presence).

4 comments about "Twitter Is Not A Platform For Solving Customer Service Issues".
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  1. Catherine Lockey from oz 2 designs LLC, March 17, 2010 at 10:16 p.m.

    I think you should take a look at this from another angle. Negative customer feedback on Twitter is an opportunity to interact personally with customers and direct them to your blog or give them your email address for further communication. This is a whole lot better than the horrible customer service many large companies currently offer. I recently posted an article about this here:http://www.cyclonemarketing.info/2010/03/12/5-steps-to-protect-your-image-online-digital-reputation-management-2/

  2. Skip Fidura from dotmailer, March 18, 2010 at 5:25 a.m.

    The companies that will be able to do this well will be those that empower their customer service staff to solve problems - not follow a script. As you rightly point out, a company will not solve a customer service problem on Twitter but it is also not enough to direct a person to the website or an 800 number. They need to be directed to a specific person who can help rather than pass the buck. The upside to this is two fold. First, a swift empathetic response can turn a grumpy customer into a happy one. Ideally one who is just as vocal about a successful outcome as they were for the negative. The second upside is that while they are speaking with a real live person they are likely to stop Tweeting which takes the conversation off the airwaves.

  3. Skeeter Harris from Mac Village Productions, March 18, 2010 at 1:59 p.m.

    I completely disagree with your take on customer service and the value Twitter brings. One take on this is the use of twitter as a means to monitor brand and respond directly to people that are complaining about your product. Is can be from both the perspective of resolving issues to spotting a potential problem that the overall company many not even be aware of yet. It also allows a company to get real "voice of customer" interaction in almost real time. In fact my take on twitter is that is not a better communications technology out today that provides the ability for almost real time communication. I for one have experienced this first hand with the fabulous folks over at AT&T. Just go back and review the twitter stream of @ATTSUSAN and you will see a Customer Service rep dedicated to working with their customers AND resolving issues for them via Twitter! Building on that point - I personally had a $2500 cell phone bill which was thankfully wrong, and trying to get this resolved via either the local AT&T store or the 800 Customer Service got me no where after 3 weeks of frustration. @ATTSUSAN had my issue resolved all via Twitter within 3 days. Another example of great customer service is @DISHNETWORK, while I have not used them I have observed them being extremely valuable to people thru their twitter stream.

  4. Les Blatt from Freelance New Media Person, March 20, 2010 at 7:59 p.m.

    I agree with the other commenters. I've found Twitter can be extremely effective - even if the customer service person merely asks for your phone number and calls you - because it is quick and personal. No endless phone chains, no unresponsive websites. Comcast, I think, has gone a long way towards rehabilitating their image among customers by using Twitter as an early warning to the company about unhappy clients - and trying to do something for them.

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