Solve Ecommerce Customer Service Issues With Twitter!

If you sell anything online, chances are you are going to get some customers that complain. It doesn’t matter where the fault lies, the old saying, “The customer is always right” is still the rule today—even for ecommerce retailers.

Time Business & Money featured a great article by Mitch Lipka, “Customer Service Via Twitter? Some Companies Are on It, Others Not So Much” in June of 2012. Here at OC Designs Online, we think this idea is simply genius!

Sure Mr. Lipka may be talking about bigger retailers choosing to solve ecommerce customer service issues with Twitter but as eBay, Volusion and BigCommerce retailers, you too can jump in on this easy-to-use customer solution. In fact, no matter what ecommerce platform  you use, it’s time to think of Twitter as your new BFF and a great way to quickly connect with customers.

Twitter is Instant

When you compose a tweet and send it, the message is sent instantly. Sure, an email does the same thing you might say but playing the email “your-it” tag game can frustrate your customers.  With Twitter, you can take advantage of direct messages for personal information such as requesting a customer’s telephone number or personal email address and contact them instantly as soon as they tweet a problem or issue to your Twitter account.

Promote It First

In order to solve ecommerce customer service issues with Twitter, you first have to promote your new solution. You can do this in blog posts, on your Facebook (and Twitter) pages, and even on Pinterest, StumbleUpon, Digg and just about any other social media platform.

And, you must promote the heck out of it—so that means letting customers know right on your storefront the fastest way to reach your customer service department is Twitter.

Once you promote it, you’ll find it won’t take long until you’re seeing tweets from the unhappy, concerned and disgruntled—of course allow your customers know you also appreciate satisfied client tweets as well!

Don’t Drop the Ball

Once these tweets start appearing in your Twitter account, the best way to fail and gain a bad name is to ignore them. Employing this customer service solution using social media means you have to respond immediately—not later in the day or tomorrow.

Even if this means you need to dedicate a team member this task, you must tweet back and do take advantage of the direct message option—never ask your customers to provide personal information within their tweets for all to see.

Twitter Is Mobile

Like Facebook and LinkedIn (and others), there’s a mobile app for Twitter so your customers don’t need to be near a computer to get a quick response from you.

Most of the time, customer concerns can be solved quickly if they are attacked instantly—the longer you wait, the angrier customers become and the chance to solve the problem grows. Put on your consumer hat. Wouldn’t you rather have an instant response about a question or concern for something you bought online right away instead of sending an email and waiting for a response?

So too do your customers!

It’s time to step up the game a bit and solve customer service issues with Twitter. Sure, many customers without Twitter accounts will still send emails and you have to respond to them as well but the number of Twitter accounts grows daily.

The best part of using Twitter is its instantaneous reach. Your customers choose to shop online for the convenience it offers so why not return the favor and give them an option to also solve problems quickly?

Be sure to bookmark our blog as we often post topics on how to make more money online and ecommerce hot trends.

Be sure to find us on Facebook and yes, Twitter!

Image Credits:

Twitter Logo – EnoW/Wikimedia Commons/CC0 1.0 Universal License

Angry at Computer – Imagerymajestic/FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Drop the Ball – Ambro/FreeDigitalPhotos.net