Revealed: Why Twitter is changing customer support

I had a real life twitter experience at work today. We’ve been implementing the strategy discussed in this blog over the last few months and we are starting to see the positive and ‘negative’ sides.

Positive?
We have set up alerts as discussed in the post Three Ways to Monitor Your Brand and we are alerted anytime our company, products or competitors are mentioned in the Twittersphere. This is great when positive things are mentioned but perceived as not so great when negative feedback is received, as I witnessed today.

We were alerted to a customer tweeting negative remarks about our product and their present experience with the software. Our Director of Customer Support was not pleased with the comments as the tone of the tweets were quite vulgar and so he didn’t want to engage in any dialogue with the customer. This is exactly when you want to reach out to show that you are listening and willing to help out. This is what will set you apart since more and more customers are fed up of companies that ‘don’t want to listen’ and that are hiding behind corporate walls. Twitter empowers everyone and levels the playing field, whether you are a large corporation or small enterprise. In the past, when you had beef with something you could tell a few of your friends or coworkers and vent your frustration about a particular company/product/service. Now, with sites like Twitter, everyone has the ability to be heard and has equal opportunity to make or break a product. ‘Word of Mouth Marketing’ quickly becomes ‘World’ of mouth marketing.

There is no negative to this story. Had we not been there and listening we would be oblivious to what customers are saying about our product, both good and bad. By listening and engaging, and reaching out to our existing and potential customers, we can only make our product and service better.

It may take our Director some time to get his head around social media and its impact on customer support but I’m sure in due time he’ll have something to tweet about. 😉

Have you had a similar experience?