Would You Like To Provide Better Customer Service Online?
Allow Us To Introduce You To Twitter
No offence, but if you haven't heard of Twitter you've been living under a rock. In 2009, approximately 23% of online Australian's 'tweeted' - and the numbers are rising at a rapid pace. This means that there are roughly 4 million Aussies using Twitter.
We believe the rise in popularity comes from the ease of the service. Twitter is basically just a notification service that links people to anyone they choose to 'follow'. A 'tweet' is a message of 140 characters and usually includes a link to a web page, online news article, blog post, photo or video. It's different from other bookmarking tools; such as, Digg or Delicious, because it's not strictly a news aggregator and doesn't include a voting system. Instead people use Twitter to add their own opinion and share other people's opinions - this is known as a 'retweet'. The echo of tweets becomes trends and this is how messages become viral.
Anyway, back to the topic at hand. Using Twitter to promote your business is missing the point of the service. Yes - you can tweet about anything, but no one is interested in following or retweeting someone who only talks about themselves. Do you know someone in your life who spews's their many great virtues every time you run into him or her? Don't you try to avoid speaking to this person? It's the same on Twitter (and everywhere for that matter).
Think of Twitter as an extension of your customer service program. A perfect example of a company currently using Twitter properly is the US e-retail giant Zappos. The company not only has a profile for the brand, but every employee has their own profile. Each member of staff is equipped to answer any consumer question about their service and the products they sell- and even answer questions about products they don't sell.
So how does this work? Let's say you're looking for a new pair of Ted Baker loafers. Instead of searching each and every website that sells the shoe you want in Australia, you tweet on Twitter, "looking for new Ted Baker loafers, dark brown, men's 10, AUS #zappos". The '#zappos' informs the entire team at Zappos that you have a question and would like someone to send you information about Ted Baker loafers, dark brown, men's size 10. There is a ledger board within the Zappos office that lists all of these types of tweets and the queue is managed just as a pending customer phone call. Systematically, the Zappos team answers each and every tweet.
Increasingly, there are heaps of examples of Australian businesses and even government officials (@kruddmp) communicating with punters on Twitter. Sometimes they answer questions, and other times they provide information about delays or technical difficulty issues. Every industry from airline carriers to television programs like, Dancing with the Stars are using Twitter to communicate with their target audience.
Find out Twitter basics in 2 minutes.
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