Saving Private Twitter
Recently I read an article on TechCrunch where the Twitter COO was thankfully rejecting the idea of charging a subscription to use Twitter.
When a crazy idea like that gets an airing on a primary medium like TechCrunch you know there is a problem.
Every business needs revenue to survive but surely there are better options staring Twitter in the face.
How about this one?
Strip out business to consumer messaging into a new app purely for customer support. Then charge businesses and/or software intermediaries for the use of the API.
Disclaimer: ServiceDock is one of those software intermediaries so I guess I’m a turkey voting for Christmas.
Why is Twitter Messenger a Good Idea?
Twitter has built one of the leading social networks in the world, but it doesn’t even come close to Facebook in terms of connecting people and helping them interact — as in actually conversing. (I can’t find any hard facts but I suspect peer to peer DM activity is fairly low — excluding auto DMs which are a curse)
But so far Twitter has matched Facebook stride for stride in terms of its users interacting with businesses for customer support. After the whole news distribution use case, I would suggest that Twitter’s impact on social customer service is its second most notable achievement.
But do people really want to tweet about all the little trials and tribulations that they encounter when dealing with customer service teams? It’s unlikely if you’ve gone to a lot of trouble to build up a follower list that includes key influencers and potential customers. Complaints via direct message are definitely the way forward, provided businesses treat them with the same urgency as tweets.
Facebook has proven that stripping messaging out of a social app can be done successfully, so Twitter Messenger would not be a bolt from the blue.
But with Messenger’s head start how can Twitter catch up?
Facebook Messenger faces Challenges
Facebook are going to great lengths to make Facebook Messenger the de facto B2C messaging app. The feature set in Messenger wins hands down when compared to Twitter. The API is also far superior. But, as is often the case, the best product may not win (at least not very quickly).
Some reasons why Messenger might struggle to build immediate and sustainable momentum in B2C messaging are as follows:
- Facebook is preoccupied with trying to kill Snapchat, which means a whole lot of fun (but not so useful) stuff is getting pride of place in Messenger. All those features make it a little more challenging and off-putting for someone not familiar with Messenger’s UI to start messaging their cable company.
- The Facebook brand has a bad rap with many users over the age of 40. For some it is fear of the social element, for others it is concern about data privacy and for many it is just a waste of time. Twitter seems to be looked upon more favourably — probably because it is constantly referenced by the media in a current affairs context.
- Facebook hasn’t gone out of its way to make it widely known that it is no longer necessary to have a Facebook account in order to have a Messenger account, which might ease some of those concerns. This is something Zuck and the team should work on because it would add plenty of grease to both business and mature user adoption.
Twitter has significant Advantages
We actually set out to build the sort of messaging app I am describing in 2015 and we encountered some significant challenges along the way. The three biggest were:
- The chicken and egg problem (asking businesses to pay to be on an app with no users is a tough sell)
- Businesses who had their own app were not too keen to be pushing a (new) third party app
- We struggled to put together the resources required to build the necessary apps and the agent’s desktop interface, while simultaneously selling the idea to businesses and driving consumer downloads (which would need to be done in every market entered)
Twitter has an answer to all of these challenges and lots of other advantages that even Facebook doesn’t have.
- Twitter’s egg has been laid with over 300m monthly active users — though there is still a challenge to move them to the new platform
- Most businesses already push Twitter as a contact channel on their websites so all that needs to change is the link
- Twitter may not be in the same league as Facebook in terms of resources, but they have more than enough to execute this plan
- Twitter can take the startup approach of doing one thing but doing it really well. Both businesses and consumers have more than enough feature demands of a B2C only messaging app to make it challenging to maintain a simple UI (no need to complicate things with social or fun elements)
- Anecdotally I would suggest business leaders are more active on Twitter than on Facebook. A quick comparison of the higher end earnings stats in the below tables from PEW research provides some corroborating evidence. This means getting C level buy in could be easier.
- Twitter doesn’t have nearly as bad a reputation as Facebook does in terms of privacy.
- Finally, I would suggest that Twitter has always been seen as a slightly more grown up app to be using than Facebook or Messenger. That might not be cool but it plays well with using the app to discuss your medical cover with an insurance company.
Another consideration is that one generation tends not to want to do the same things as the previous generation — particularly at the late teen/early adult stage. This is true of many things and it is one of the drivers of fashion. But later in life more and more people conform to the norm. They have kids and start worrying more about access to schools and paying bills rather than skinny jeans or boot cuts.
Maybe there is an opening for a grown up messaging app?
I’m not sure if this strategy will appeal to the Twitter hierarchy, but Twitter’s user base is already more mature and influential on average than Facebook’s (though there are plenty of exceptions to that generalisation). Twitter’s most engaged users include CEOs, politicians, celebrities and leading academics. Exactly the sort of people businesses like airlines, utilities and financial institutions want to deal with.
So rather than trying to be the next cool thing, my guess is there is room for a mature messaging app that doesn’t have all the bells and whistles you will currently find in Facebook Messenger or Snapchat.
I’m sure Mark Zuckerburg and co have WhatsApp lined up for that role, but WhatsApp has its own flaws when it comes to B2C messaging (I have WhatsApp muted on my phone because once a group of 5 or more get going my phone quickly turns into a beeping nuisance).
Why make it B2C Messaging only and how would it work?
The world doesn’t really need another social messaging app, but there has got be a place for an app that centralises all your business messaging needs to the exclusion of ads and Tom foolery.
This is how it could work:
- Lean towards privacy rather than data exploitation. This will go down well with businesses, users and governments (at least in the EU where the GDPR is coming down the tracks in 2018).
- Abandon ads unless customers opt in to receive them from a specific business. Make money by charging per 1,000 messages or a similar use based model. Getting larger businesses to pay will not be difficult provided Twitter offers the appropriate level of service and business features.
- Restrict it to official company accounts only and verify accounts rigorously to minimise spam and fraud etc.
- Build features that work for both businesses and users (e.g. payments, user identity verification tools, security features and so on — no leprechaun filters here please)
- Use the original Twitter app for shares to friends etc. (i.e. keep Private Twitter Messenger clean and for business use only)
Why can’t it work in the current Twitter app?
The biggest argument for keeping messaging in the current app is probably to avoid disconnecting tweets at businesses from direct messages to/from businesses (other than the risk that making such a bold move blows up in your face of course). This is clearly a valid argument, but again Facebook has implemented solutions to bring people directly from Facebook into Messenger via deep links and it seems to be working reasonably well. There is no reason Twitter couldn’t do the same.
Another consideration is that as messaging becomes a better supported channel (by businesses), tweeting should become less necessary.
The primary reason to unbundle the customer service messaging is simple. Customer service features are going to need to be the focus of the app if it is to be truly successful. The rest of Twitter will just get in the way. I really don’t think anything else needs to be said about that. I would be surprised if the majority of product managers in Twitter didn’t agree.
Maybe this is all crazy talk or maybe Twitter have most the above already built and are going to make a massive announcement anytime now. I have no idea where they stand on it. But one thing’s for sure; WhatsApp’s and iMessage’s impending arrival into the B2C messaging space is going to up the competition dramatically.
If you’re going to make the move Jack, now is the time!
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