Twitter Customer Service Done Right: Lessons from 15 Brands
Social media is now a valuable part of many brands’ customer service strategies. While you can use almost every major platform like Linkedin, Facebook, Instagram for connecting with your customers, Twitter has become a personal favorite for customers to report any grievances or share their feedback.
Instead of making that phone call to a customer care number or availing resources from the brands’ FAQ portal, existing and potential customers find it easier to post a tweet to get the brands’ attention. Once a tweet notification is received, the brands can choose to provide a quick response publicly or use the direct message feature to share an alternate way of getting in touch with the right person. With the efforts behind the management of social media customer service, Twitter customer service is a boon and a bane in disguise.
4 ways to use Twitter customer service the right way
- A support handle goes a long way: Show that you care by introducing a new Twitter handle to take care of all brand mentions and customer feedback shared on Twitter.
- Define SLAs on your Twitter handle: Customers like to know the response time for a shared concern. Your customers will appreciate your brand if you share your active work hours so the expectations are set straight.
- Personalize each response: Customer satisfaction is guaranteed once the customer feels heard and understood. Make sure your customer service reps personalize each response based on the customer tweet.
- Be empathetic: Twitter is a great platform to address any grievances in real-time. However, the customer service team needs to empathize with the customers while offering them the best solution possible.
We understand that adding a new social channel to your customer service strategy can be intimidating. That’s why we’ve compiled 15 examples of brands doing Twitter support right. You can follow their lead and start using the social media platform to serve your customers.
15 Brands Doing Twitter Customer Service Right
1. Amazon
Amazon is famous for putting customers first. Amazon’s support-focused Twitter account receives dozens of inquiries in a variety of languages every day. In order to cater to the multilingual requirements of customer care, the account offers support in English, Spanish, German, French, Portuguese, Italian, and Japanese.
By leveraging a customer service software, they are able to categorize and prioritize these tweets into buckets, using custom filters like language, customer handles, and urgency. This helps the brand to offer a resolution to customer concerns from the same account in a manner that is convenient for their customers and their agents alike.
2. Best Buy
Best Buy’s Twitter support team does a nice job of providing actionable advice to customers and giving them the opportunity to get in touch for further assistance.
While many brands respond to every inquiry by asking the user to send a direct message with more information, Best Buy attempts to provide a resolution first. If the resolution isn’t enough, the customer can follow up on the same thread to find more information around the raised concern.
With this approach, they are able to resolve the customer’s issue without requiring them to send a new message and re-explain their problem to multiple agents. This saves time and effort on behalf of the customer and the agent and makes Best Buy the best bet in catering to customer expectations.
3. ClassPass
While some customer support teams focus their efforts solely on existing customers, ClassPass takes the time to respond to all the Twitter users who reach out to the brand—even those who aren’t members yet. This gives ClassPass the opportunity to interact with potential customers and nurture their relationships to convert them to members. Even if a few of these users don’t make it as members right away, when they do have the chance to join, they’ll have a reason to support the brand.
Some users may reach out to the brand to express their frustration about the fact that the brand doesn’t operate in their location yet. By responding to these tweets, ClassPass acknowledges their concerns, and customer feedback like this is recorded internally for strategic planning in the future.
4. Domino’s Pizza
In many cases, retail brands might need personal information from the customer before they can offer a solution to the problem shared. For example, Domino’s needs to know the user’s name, phone number, and email address before accessing their order information. Given that Twitter is a public platform, it isn’t advisable to ask customers to share such personal details via a tweet.
So, Domino’s found a simple way of making sure the customer experience is not compromised. Their support team instructs users who contact them on Twitter to send such information via a DM (direct message). This way, the customer support agent responsible for each inquiry can find the information they need to provide a helpful and accurate response.
5. Enlightened
As an ice cream brand, Enlightened might not receive a ton of tweets with questions about their product or other traditional support inquiries. Instead, customers tweet and tag the company’s Twitter account with photos of the most popular products, some flavorful suggestions, and reviews of their favorite picks of the season.
Responding to these tweets isn’t exactly urgent but it’s imperative for a brand’s success to interact with participating Twitter users to nurture a healthy relationship with the existing customer base. Enlightened takes the time to engage in fun, light-hearted responses to customer posts.
This is a simple way to build brand loyalty and give those users all the more reasons for repeat purchases.
6. Google
It’s no surprise that Google’s support website is home to a ton of helpful information for anyone using the brand’s many products, the popular ones being Gmail, Google Drive, and Google Calendar.
So when a user reaches out to Google via Twitter, their support team often redirects them to their knowledge base. With an effective knowledge base in place, Google is able to promote self-service to grant customers instant access to information. A ready repository of FAQs helps Google to ease agent bandwidth and proactively address needs that their customers might have. The 24/7 assistance offered by a knowledge base empowers the customers with additional resources, taking care of issues they might run into in the future.
7. IKEA
Much like Amazon, IKEA has a large, international customer base. But instead of responding to all of their inquiries from a single account, the company runs dedicated Twitter accounts for each of the countries they serve.
This gives the brand’s support team enough room to divide their efforts, and agents can serve customers in their own regions and languages.
It should be noted that IKEA’s product offerings may vary country by country. Hence, this approach allows agents to offer personalized and accurate product-related information based on each customer’s location.
8. LaCroix
Just like Enlightened, LaCroix is another brand that may not receive a ton of serious support inquiries, but the brand receives a decent amount of mentions and engagement on Twitter.
This gives them the freedom to take a creative spin at their customer interactions, which often involves them sharing GIFs and memes in response to their customer tweets.
So even if your customers aren’t yet using Twitter for their support needs, there’s no reason not to stay active on the social media platform. Even simple responses like LaCroix’s can be the first step to connecting with your existing users and attracting potential customers.
9. Peet’s Coffee
Peet’s Coffee does an excellent job of providing thorough, helpful responses on Twitter.
The account’s support team is clearly well-versed in the company’s products, policies, promotions, website, and app.
This is the level of customer support that any business should aim for if they’re looking to use Twitter. Instead of simply using the social media platform to direct users to another channel, train your customer service reps to find and tweet the solutions your customers need in the time promised.
10. Sephora
Sephora’s Twitter support is a prime example of a team that’s well-versed with the company’s products and is a custodian of Sephora’s brand voice.
Many users reach out to Sephora’s Twitter account to browse for product recommendations or share reviews of the ones they’ve tried. On their Twitter handle, the all-rounder support team even shares product recommendations with their customers by tagging and interacting with them as and when they review Sephora products.
This gives customers all the more reason to connect via Twitter and make the platform part of their product research and buying journey.
11. Southwest Airlines
Southwest Airlines is one of the leading brands that takes pride in its reputation for great customer service. This stems from different elements of their brand voice- the fun, the creative tone, and the empathy with which they respond to customer inquiries on Twitter.
Here’s an example that shows the brand at work. During this instance, when a customer tweeted their question in the form of a poem, the brand’s support team provided an answer to match the level of creativity shown by the customer.
Adding some personality to the brand-customer interactions can go a long way in establishing brand loyalty. Plus, it’s just plain fun. Brightening a customer’s day is worth a few extra seconds of effort.
12. Spotify
Spotify’s website is home to an extensive knowledge base with articles about everything from billing and payments to tips for finding new music. Their Twitter support team makes the most of these articles by directing users who reach out on the platform to the articles that are relevant to them.
Of course, if an agent can fully resolve a question with 280 characters, this isn’t necessary. But for users seeking more in-depth information, it’s extremely helpful.
13. T-Mobile
T-Mobile runs a dedicated support account under the handle @TMobileHelp. A member of their main support team monitors and runs this account.
When a user reaches out with a question or concern, the support agent who responds to the tweet includes a link to their own profile. This way, the customer feels comfortable reaching out to the tagged rep for any further assistance they might need and it holds the customer service rep accountable for the resolution provided which reflects well for the brand.
Although text-based support cannot be fully replicated in-person or over phone calls, this simple step adds a human element to Twitter interactions. It reassures users that they’re speaking to a real person—not just a brand.
14. Xbox
Xbox keeps tabs on customer feedback and customer support responses through a separate account, @XboxSupport. They also keep tabs on customer feedback shared in the form of comments on their main Twitter handle @Xbox so they can ensure each customer feels heard by the brand.
The brand’s main account focuses on sharing company updates, game launches, and other marketing-focused content while their support account is responsible for responding to customer tweets. Xbox is known to receive multiple customer inquiries on Twitter. As a result, their customer service reps have to be on their toes to keep a check on how they may resolve queries on the go.
Having a separate support account allows minimum interference between their marketing and support efforts via tweets that go on their main Twitter account. They need not worry about losing followers on their main account due to a high tweet volume addressing concerns and grievances. It helps them improve agent productivity since their support team can focus their efforts solely on users reaching out directly.
15. Zappos
As a brand that has a reputation for world-class customer support, it should come as no surprise that Zappos provides excellent customer service on Twitter.
In fact, customers who contact the brand on Twitter can expect the same level of customer support they’d receive on any of the company’s other support channels. The brand ensures a consistent brand voice across multiple channels for a seamless customer experience.
Instead of redirecting their customers to yet another channel or instructing them to send a direct message to a specific point of contact, the customer support agents take the time to look into customer concerns and provide the information they need.
As a result, their response time has been reduced to a matter of a few minutes.
Conclusion
Twitter has the potential to be an excellent addition to any brand’s customer service strategy.
The 15 examples illustrate the significance of customer service on the go and the myriad ways to tailor your approach to both your business and your customers’ needs. How do you get started? Just choose a tone that matches your brand, show that you care, and focus on delivering the information and support that your customers want at the earliest.
Meet your customers where they are and keep them coming back to your brand for more. With social media, the power lies with your customers as much as your brand.
Originally published on Jan 02, 2019. Updated on Dec 03, 2021.
