Twitter Customer Service – TD Bank

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This is a weekly Friday installment from Stuzo documenting consumer engagement tips and tricks, both for day-to-day community management and for large-scale custom engagements. Hopefully this post will spark an idea for your brand or client, and if it does, be sure to let us know in the comments.

Twitter Customer Service | StuzoProviding exceptional customer service is essential to maintaining long-term customer relationships and a positive brand image. Traditionally, companies have offered customer service through phone and email. While effective, the thought of navigating through an automated menu just to wait on hold for hours or sending emails to an unknown person can make many customers uneasy. The instant nature and popularity of social media channels like Twitter make it the perfect new medium for socially-savvy brands to provide customer service.

Ah Twitter, the land of 140-characters. For many including myself, Twitter has become a place to vent about daily frustrations. Had a bad day at work? Tweet about it. Broke up with your girlfriend? Tweet about it. Having a problem with a company that provided you a product or service? Tweet about it. That’s right, whether intentionally seeking help or not; customers could be taking their frustrations about your brand to Twitter. Are you prepared to respond?

My first experience with Twitter customer service was when I complained about my Comcast cable service.  Unaware that Comcast was even on Twitter; I was surprised when I got a tweet immediately back from someone named ComcastBill. I then jokingly tweeted that Comcast was stalking me, which immediately sparked more tweets from another Comcast customer service representative. Within a few more tweets, my issue was completely resolved.

Twitter provides several advantages to the customer in terms of customer service:

With all these advantages, however, is one inherent disadvantage…you are limited to 140 characters.  What could be solved with one email or phone call, may take 10 tweets. Regardless, Twitter membership continues to rise with 460,000 new accounts created every day.  Companies must get onboard and embrace Twitter as part of their brand management and customer service strategies or get left behind.

Though Comcast has been cited many times as the prime example of effective Twitter customer service, there are many other exemplary companies in different industries.  TD Bank, for example, provides exceptional Twitter customer service to both its TD Bank and TD Canada Trust customers.  The financial services industry heavily depends on high-quality customer service, as customers need to feel secure that their money is in the right hands.

TD Bank | Stuzo

TD Canada Trust | Stuzo

So how do TD Bank and TD Canada Trust do it?

  1. Verified Account– A verified account assures that you are tweeting with the official account.
  2. Complete Bio– The bio guarantees that you will be tweeting with real people.
  3. Customer Service Profile– Just in case that promise wasn’t enough; TD provides the actual names and faces of their Twitter customer service teams.  Additionally, they provide phone and email options if tweeting is not sufficient. Doing so, allows customers to obtain this contact information without leaving the Twitter page.
  4. Tweet Signatures– To make tweets seem more personable and to add accountability, the customer service members leave their initials at the end of their tweets.
  5. Respond to Non-Mentions– I noticed that both TD accounts respond to users who do not properly mention the account names in their tweets (i.e. someone who tweets TD Canada Trust instead of @TD_Canada). This means that TD is actively searching for people who tweet their names, so they do not miss an opportunity to connect with a customer.
  6. Respond to the Good and the Bad– Not every tweet about a company will be negative, and customer service should not limit itself to only handling complaints. Both TD accounts RT or reply to customers who praise the company. This shows that TD cares about all it’s customers and takes pride in providing great service.

Now that you have all this wonderful information, it’s time to start crafting a Twitter customer service strategy for your brand.  If you are unsure where to start, answer these questions:

  1. What do customers expect from our company?
  2. How are we currently offering customer service and what is/is not working?
  3. How are other companies in our industry handling Twitter customer service?
  4. Are we going to have one main customer service Twitter account (like TD) or individualized accounts for each representative (like Comcast)?
  5. What will our Twitter hours be? Are we offering 24/7 Twitter customer service?
  6. What will be our approach to respond to negative tweets?
  7. Will we react to positive tweets?
  8. Which Twitter applications will we utilize?
  9. How can we make our account(s) as personable as possible?

No matter which approach you decide to take, remember that you must be internally equipped with the right staff, technology, procedures, and guidelines to successfully carry out your plan.

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