Technology is changing the way we do business all the time, and the invention of Twitter brought with it one of the most notable advances in communication of recent years.

Billing itself as a micro-blogging service, Twitter allows for both one-to-one and one-to-many communication. Regular users of the service will probably agree that the premise of Twitter is hard to explain; you just have to use it to understand it’s value. It is probably still accurate to assume that a large portion of Twitter’s user base comes from the media, creative and technology industries, but this will certainly not be the case forever. Social tools are still new and as a race we are continually learning how to use them. Having said that, society is embracing this new form of communication at an incredibly fast pace, and businesses of all sizes will be missing out if they are not themselves immersed in this technology.

Using Twitter to Speak to Customers

Along with post (aka snail-mail), email, telephone and even SMS text messaging, a lot of forward-thinking companies (such as @vodafoneuk and @asda) are allocating staff to answer customer queries via Twitter. This is relatively straightforward in its approach because of the nature of Twitter; your message can only be 140 characters long, so simple problems can be shot down quickly. There are, however, a number of serious issues when opening up this can of worms:

• What about problems that cannot be solved quickly (or within 140 characters)?
• How does an organisation train its staff in social online conduct?
• How does an organisation deal with the sheer number of customer enquiries?

Resolving large problems

It’s quite likely that a customer may send a tweet to a company to ask a basic question, to which there is a simple answer. However when this is not the case, more detail is required. The company may request an email be sent to a specific address detailing the situation or, better yet, employ a support ticket system to tackle larger problems.

What’s the point of all this? Simple – good communication; because queries can be sent and picked up so quickly via Twitter they can be acted upon sooner than a more traditional approach. In most situations a tweet back to the customer notifying them that the situation is being looked into is enough to put their minds at rest.

How should staff conduct themselves online?

I wrote a piece last week on how a company should approach writing a social media policy, and this touched on the issue of how staff should conduct themselves professionally online.

It goes without saying that staff should always treat customers and colleagues with complete respect and not post anything that could be construed as offensive, but outside of these basic rules there are guidelines which can be followed in order to track what is being said and by whom.

For example, if five staff members were to share one Twitter account there may be some confusion over who posted which message. In this case each member of staff should hash tag their initials at the end of each tweet (i.e. #ms) so that they can be tracked.

Staff should also be advised to participate in the community, seeking out their customers and pro-actively trying to answer queries and fix problems as they occur. Depending on the size of the organisation, a simple search for the company name will reveal a community either singing your praises or pulling you apart (or more likely, both!).

How does an organisation deal with hundreds of queries per day?

Before Twitter, the flood barriers were relatively tight; emails could be responded to in due course and telephone queuing systems prevented customers talking to the company for, in most cases, at least 15 minutes.

Now the turnover of correspondence towards a company through Twitter is high, and there is absolutely no stopping it. If a message is not picked up and responded to within a very short space of time it risks being buried forever. This leaves the customer feeling unsatisfied and results in them having to pursue more primitive channels.

The only way a company can deal with a high volume of queries is by being pro-active and constantly focused on giving fast, efficient customer service.

Twitter is a dynamic medium and the staff operating it must be equally as dynamic – if not, running a Twitter feed to solve customer enquiries could do more harm than good.

You wouldn’t set up a helpline and never answer the phone, would you?

The quick & easy guide

Offering great customer service via Twitter is certainly achievable. Just make sure you are aiming to hit on all these points:

• Be pro-active and seek out customer queries before a problem occurs. This will earn you genuine kudos points in the community
• If you can’t be pro-active, be quick to respond. Even if you don’t know the answer, send a tweet back in acknowledgement
• Add value to your niche and the community will respect you a whole lot more than somebody who solely exists to promote their business
• Always be courteous and helpful to all users

You can follow Matt Saunders on Twitter here