Twitter thinks it can help brands boost loyalty and sales with new direct message tools
Twitter is trying to make it easier for businesses to deal with customer service requests by introducing a quicker way to start a direct message.
The site claims that millions of customer service-related interactions take place on the platform every month, with advertisers saying that over 80 per cent of their inbound social customer service requests happen on Twitter.
“These businesses generate impressive results — not only are their customers more satisfied, but they also see a cost per resolution that is one-sixth the cost of a call center interaction. And this leads to increased brand loyalty and sales,” the social network said.
Businesses regularly need to take a conversation from public to private before any personal information can be shared. But right now that process is clunky; a business or customer first has to ask the other to follow and then a separate conversation is started within the DM feed.
That has all been replaced with a single ‘direct message’ button which can be added to a tweet, promising to make the whole interaction easier for both customers and brands.
Meanwhile Twitter is also planning the roll out, initially with selected brands, of a new survey feature called Customer Feedback.
“Care teams have told us they love the open-ended feedback they get from users via Tweets and Direct Messages, but they also need the ability to survey customers in a structured way to better measure and improve their service experience,” said Twitter.
It claims this will make it easier for brands to ask customers about their thoughts against use two industry standard question formats: Net Promoter Score and Customer Satisfaction.
Both tools will also be integrated with Twitter’s third-party partners including Hootsuite, Salesforce, and Sprinklr.
It comes amid a wider push by Twitter to engage with more businesses. Last year it saw the roll out of a buy-now button which can be embedded into tweets.