Using Twitter to Manage Customer Service Complaints

As Twitter.com becomes more pervasive, it will become imperative for companies to watch what is being said about their products, services, and service to customers. Already there are enough people on Twitter (30 million +) to warrant having a look to see if anyone is talking about your business in a negative or positive way – but, definitely you’d want to know if someone was saying smoethng negative so you could do some damage control.

Twitter is a little like the world’s largest chat system. And it isn’t. Only those that follow you can see what you write, or “Tweet”. So, if you have 1,000 followers – only they can see what you’re writing about on Twitter. However, say something great (or stupid) and some that are following you can retweet what you said to their group of followers which means your message could go quite a bit further than just within your own follower group.

One of the neat features about Twitter is that you can search on the whole Twitter world and see what anyone is saying about any topic you choose.

If you go to Twitter.com you’ll see a search box on the right column. Try it. When I search on “AimforAwesome” – a friend’s business I can see all the chats that went on with that username – and with anyone mentioning that exact phrase – with no spaces – anywhere on Twitter – no matter if I follow them or not.

It’s powerful stuff. Here’s why.

You can send a message to people that are talking about your business and ask them if you can help clear up their problem. You can manage the negatives people are saying about your business daily. You have an opportunity to do damage control and turn negatives into positives. That’s very powerful because before Twitter you had no way to montor what anyone is saying about your business unless they’re writing a website post about it or talking about it in a forum.

Twitter has become a sort of forum for people with customer service issues. They tweet about their problems and eventually someone hears them and gets it resolved.

Sign up for Twitter and start monitoring your business, email address, websites, name, products you’re selling – or considering buying. Twitter also is a great way to research what people are saying about products you are thinking about buying – and gives you the opportunity to ask owners of those products whether they would recommend them to you.

Social media – it’s the next wave… it’s here – but, it’s the next wave and it’s a big one.