Why Twitter is Your Most Important Support Channel

By Laura Norman

We’ve entered the age of the social customer. Today’s customers have a lot of power, and their voices are amplified on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and other social channels. Not only do they research brands online, but they’re vocal about sharing their opinions. In case you’re still not convinced that you need to make social a part of your support mix, consider this: Gartner says that failure to respond via social channels can lead to a 15% increase in churn. Here are a few reasons why Twitter is rapidly becoming your most important support channel.

Everyone’s doing it. According to J.D. Power and Associates, More than 67% of consumers have used a company’s social media page for customer support. If your customers are there, you need to be too.

Short handle times. With just 140 characters to work with, Twitter forces your agents to focus their messages and be concise. In this medium they aren’t expected to write out long grammatically correct sentences, or be very formal. As a result they can usually handle inquiries in half the time.

Conversation is public. If you are solving a problem quickly and in public, it lets customers know that you are responsive. They can see that you have a support team that’s effective and knowledgeable, and shows the human side of your company

Reach multiple users at a time. Sometimes multiple customers ask the same question at one time. (And others might be wondering but not asking.) Twitter gives you the opportunity to jump in and solve the problem for 2–3 (or more) people at one time.

Conversation is near real-time. When you converse with customers via Twitter you can get answers more quickly since they only take a minute or two for customers to compose. You can also get a fast overview of what’s happening with your business since it’s easy to see the questions that are being talked about the most.

Think Twitter is the future of customer service? Find out more on what to expect in the new age of service by downloading the free e-book!