Twitter to make customer contact easier

Carolyn Blunt explains how Twitter’s plan to change Direct Messaging could make it easier to contact your customers.

This change will be great for social customer service because previously a brand or business had to follow the individual customer in order to communicate with them via the private message system on Twitter, and vice versa.

Many times brands would ask the customer to ‘DM’ details of the query (essential to avoid personal data being broadcast) but had failed to follow the individual and so frustrated tweets such as the following were very commonplace:

“I would give you my account details via DM but you have to follow me for me to DM you!”

Without the ability to easily DM, much more exploration of the issue occurred online rather than offline, causing more frustrated rants to be aired to all.

It’s important to still keep some interaction in the open, though, as the previously asked questions on the feed can deflect repetition if the answer is provided in the public domain.

Negative sentiment might be less obvious as a result of this change, which is great for the brands; but let’s not forget that the customer can still choose whether they want to tweet publicly or DM, and therefore whether their comments can be seen publicly or kept private.

Choice is a great thing. However, it is vital that the option to accept DM on your account from people you do not follow can stay switched firmly on.  Otherwise Harry Styles and the rest of One Direction would be drowning in their Direct Messages!

With thanks to Carolyn Blunt, Customer Service expert and co-author of the new book ‘How To Deliver Effective Social Customer Service’.