This triggers my recent pet-peeve: why is everyone using Twitter as their de-facto customer service? I know the answer to my question, but it's frustrating and pathetic.
Thanks for sharing your experience. One reason I asked this question is because I have recently noticed a pattern: a lot of people on Twitter are Tweeting to reach out to businesses. They do this by tweeting at companies which have a @support Twitter account. These users have a lot of different queries: discount code not working, delivery status of their product, not being able to tip their Uber driver etc. I found this to be interesting because when we generally talk about customer service it's usually through email, using a CRM app like Intercom, or calling their phone number, not over social media.
Ok, the downvotes are deserved, but more to the point, I don't use twitter and after all these years I have not understood what it's for. What do people use it for?
My main problem with twitter and the stalled new user base.
1. The onboarding social experience is just hard. Finding relevant information of what I want is difficult I wish there was a pane of tweets regarding interests ie gaming, politics etc. Everything in one thread is mind numbing once you follow too many people.
2. Context - finding anything is difficult. I don't know what a trending hashtag is and the ones presented to me usually are gossip in nature for some reason?
3. Some people get so many @'s that they simply drop off the earth.
4. Whats the point of favoriting a tweet? I still don't get it.
5. Why is it so difficult to use the API since those changes in what 2012?
6. 140 characters is just so dang hard for me. I can understand a limit but just 140? I want just a little more space :(
Now for a reason why you shouldn't use it to respond to customer complaints: The second word gets out that using Twitter gets you better customer service, everyone will use Twitter. And unlike the occasional good PR that comes with Twitter, you now have a reputation for not doing things right in the first place. Availability bias is a bitch.
I have mixed feelings about twitter. On the one hand I see it as a nice way to make interesting conversations surface and reach a wide audience. On the other hand I see it as a constant stream of ads. I don't know if I'd be happy if it all goes down, or if something better comes along. Which problem is twitter actually trying to solve?
I suspect it’s not really the public nature of Twitter that makes its responses better, it’s simply that internal procedures empower people manning social media to fix customer problems more effectively than the normal customer support channels.
I don’t have Twitter, but I have complained to companies via Facebook (which at this point I don’t notably use either, but still have an account) private messages, and have had my problem fixed efficiently after complete failure via multiple other methods of contact. (Those companies being Vodacom South Africa who kept sending me some customer’s invoices, and Uber Eats, which made a complete mess of an order in multiple ways.)
If those social media accounts function as an expedited way to get customer service, then people are indeed interested in engaging with them. That seems to be one of the popular uses of Twitter for brands these days: a way to escalate complaints that aren't getting attention through usual channels.
Not to sound like a Boomer, but I still genuinely don't get what Twitter is for. I actually finally created an account a year ago and most of my follows are pretty high-brow (journalists, various industry experts, some big shots in my outer circle) and I still get almost no value from it. They use twitter to post inside jokes or promos to web content that I didn't have trouble finding without twitter. Maybe 1 out of every 1000 tweets will have an unfiltered take that I can't get somewhere else.
Also, the promoted tweets are always way, way off my interests. They look like pigeon droppings on my windshield.
Everyone here saying that the alternative to Twitter is just not using social media at all because it's toxic and useless... have you considered that maybe you're just using it wrong or following the wrong people? Why is my experience so different?
I've gone to meetups, made new friends, gone to dates, found job offers, etc. all thanks to Twitter, Twitter has probably been the biggest kickstarter to my social life since I moved to the city.
As a twitter non-user isn't this how twitter is supposed to work? You put your take out there and some people tell you you are right and other people tell you you suck.
I have heard this so many times from my non-tech friends:
"Your friend just took a crap & tweeted about it? Power to you"
"The popularity of twitter is testament to the stupidity of the human race"
I personally never tweet. I only follow popular people to hear what they say, news sites, local businesses, etc. I don't really know why anyone follows me.
We have a twitter account for announcements. I find it quite inconvenient and inappropriate when people send questions or messages through Twitter that could be better handled through email. It's essentially a waste of time as the twitter format is so limiting.... it's not possible to say anything detailed or truly informative in those tiny messages.
That said, it is worth engaging customers and providing info on Twitter. I wouldn't really call what it works well for 'customer service', however.
Twitter is amazing for getting companies to fix problems. They absolutely hate bad publicity and will usually go out of their way to fix the issue, or at least push you into a DM with them to hide it. FCC complaints also go a long ways.
I really want to like Twitter, I really do. So many possibilities, so many interesting services built on top of them, it would be a great centre for "online identity", a main front to communicate with friends and audience.
Except when they do these kinds of things, and I wonder how on Earth it makes any sense besides "because we can"?
I use twitter for one thing and one thing only - moaning at companies, ie. supermarkets, train companies, airlines etc. who have given me bad service. They're surprisingly responsive.
Other than that, I find twitter little to no use at all. There are better places to get my news from (RSS).
I don't have the ability to downvote I have too little Karma after so many years but I have to ask why care about Twitter? It seems like a waste of time.
The problem with this I feel and one of the advantages of Twitter is that if a certain company controls their community page (e.g. Audi USA) and I go to post some sort of customer service complaint, they have the option of removing it. With Twitter, I can just add a hashtag or @message them and it'd be visible globally with search.
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