Twitter is the new channel all brands should be using to provide customer support. It allows you to provide near real-time support on a social platform, making your services more accessible and allowing other consumers to see that you are a customer-centric brand.
However, it is important to monitor your performance for this channel in terms of response time and satisfaction rate, just as you would for traditional channels such as call centers. WaveMetrix have developed a comprehensive analysis framework to help you track how satisfied customers are with the support you’re offering on Twitter, as well as some best practices to help you increase positive feedback.
The first step is to make sure you are providing a dedicated support channel, rather than mixing it up with your brand space. A study by WaveMetrix shows that a dedicated Twitter support handle helps channel negativity away from your main brand space, where you should be focusing on building positive brand engagement.
Brands with a separate customer service handle have much less negativity on their main brand space:
The second step is to make sure you are responding to complaints in a timely manner and to compare your performance with the rest of your industry. Consumers expect a fast response on social channels and every unanswered complaint is negative buzz about your brand.
Finally, you should measure the proportion of positive consumer tweets to your support handle to see whether customers are thanking your reps for their service. WaveMetrix’s paper suggests ways to increase the amount of positive feedback you get, for example, you are likely to get more positive feedback by having named reps who identify themselves when serving your consumers rather than using an official handle name:
AT&T and Delta airlines are examples of brands who use named reps on their support handles:
The information we’ve reviewed here was taken from a study that was conducted using the traditional WaveMetrix methodology, combining technology to measure response time and reach, with 100% human coding to analyze sentiment and topic.
As a consumer, how do you like to interact with brands on Twitter? Do any of these tactics work better in your opinion?
Read more details about WaveMetrix’s customer service analysis framework by downloading the PDF paper here or contact Leonie Bulman at leonie.bulman@wavemetrix.com.
About Leonie Bulman
