Customer Service in the Age of the API
Today, Twitter announced their entry into customer service on Twitter. It’s unsurprising that they are taking an ecosystem approach. Customer Service is a natural use case for Twitter, and really anywhere people engage with brands. Whether you’re complaining about the delays on your flight or just want to be recognized as a person, Twitter offers an ideal communication path because of its data availability and publication functionality made possible by APIs. I’m biased, but I think they’re going to be wildly successful as this suite of products and partnerships adapts and expands.
A Business Interlude
Much has been made of late about Twitter’s chicken and egg (no pun intended) problem: in order to nail revenue growth, and customer service growth, Twitter needs consumers using the platform. A focus on customer service is one bet to sort out which came first: if the brands are on Twitter (and they are!), and it’s made known that through both technology and guidance that it’s the best place to serve customers in realtime, then consumers will flock (sorry) to Twitter to be served, and incidentally get hooked onto the benefits the rest of us are already enjoying there.
Twitter, inherently public, has this service going on in front of the world. There are local worlds— the user’s network — but there’s always the chance that it could spark and ‘go viral’. A lack of customer service is a kind of inaction — when a user complains about a brand, and the brand doesn’t see it (or even know it hasn’t seen it), a negative equity grows. That hole is seen by others. Great customer service is marketing. When a brand engages to a positive outcome, that’s also seen by others. While it increases consumer expectations, those expectations raise brand awareness and affinity.
That kind of collective unconscious made explicit is great for both driving more brands and consumers to Twitter and for encouraging those brands to engage in paid advertising. Now there are new avenues for informing, showcasing, and reacting to customer needs in public. A brand confident in Twitter, the ecosystem software it uses, its own products, and the team supporting it can flaunt and invite consumers into its campaigns, leading to more revenue for Twitter through data licensing and advertising.
APIs and Data power a number of important steps in the customer lifecycle on Twitter.
In my Platform Philosophy post I included this graphic, and looking at it from the perspective of customer care identifies many of the touchpoints that APIs have:
As with any cycle, we’re given the chicken and egg problem, but here it’s in the top left quadrant — brands are getting utility from Twitter — as marketers, disseminators of information, and providers of great products requiring unparalleled service. Let’s start there and work backwards. They deliver their messages on Twitter by using Twitter API clients for Publishing. Those Publishing and Engagement clients (like Lithium Social Web, Insightpool) pull data in from the web, photo databases, Bitly, CRM systems, and the like, again — all from APIs.
Most likely, they’re tightly coupled with a Listening tool (like Lithium Social Web, Mention)— also Twitter API clients — that are identifying trends and behavior that help brands segment users and prioritize and craft their responses and brand messaging. These clients are also integrated with a number of external APIs, like Klout, CRM systems (again!), ticketing systems, and a variety of other services.
You have to analyze your performance, before, during, and after all of these engagements. Are you listening to the right things? Did you say the right things? Are your customers saying things? How do you regroup and start this cycle again? Analytics tools like SimplyMeasured, Crimson Hexagon, and others tend to provide this — but again, it’s increasingly coupled with engagement and listening as the ecosystem works together.
Brands can’t do all of this alone. If a brand could, they’d all be using Twitter.com and the official Twitter clients to listen, analyze, and engage (the holy trifecta of marketing and service!). Because they need this advanced functionality to drive value to consumers onto Twitter, it creates demand for a market for these SaaS products to partner with Twitter and other API providers. That market drives demand for more data from other third parties to enrich their capabilities and facilitate the ability for brands and marketers to do their jobs.
So. Now the Brands are on Twitter because their customers are (or are going to be) on Twitter. And their Customers are on Twitter because the Brands are on Twitter. Data about those brands, about those customers, are flowing through an ecosystem of products and API services that are there to deliver brands and, ultimately, customers value. Value here is a good product experience, priority support, a feeling of caring, inclusion, and delight.
Interestingly, this is again an Ouroboros. Platforms eat data to create data that they can eat again in an endless cycle. Wired Magazine’s coverage seems (surprisingly) unimpressed, but I think they’re ignoring the power of the ecosystem and the network effects a focused approach will generate. They did point out, correctly, that it’s been Twitter’s to lose, and it’s high time that they’ve tackled it. It’s certainly adjacent and key to their goals, and everyone benefits from that.
Facebook’s approach, announced the day before, seemingly carries none of these benefits. No partners, no ecosystem benefits. Just some new consumer and business product that enables private communication between brands and people. This is safe. But where there is no risk, there’s little reward.
