Comments on: Is Twitter Revolutionizing CRM?

By: Nina

Nina — Fri, 01 May 2009 16:28:24 +0000

That’s a very interesting use of this tool. No matter what, more significant customer service issues would have to be taken offline and managed within CRM itself. But it is indeed a nice time saver and marketing asset when I just want to know when ‘Free Coffee Day’ is. In my own blog, I’ve admitted to be addicted to Twitter myself.

By: Aris

Aris — Sat, 25 Apr 2009 05:18:57 +0000

Just my opinion; I personally feel that twitter as a customer service tool/channel may not be efficient/cost effective.
Twitter as a marketing/research tool to improve products & customer service would make more sense. companies should just gather information from the twitters rather than communicate with them. after all, most of us on twitter to get to know updates on the ppl that we care & vice versa.

By: Qiwei Liu (Leo)

Qiwei Liu (Leo) — Fri, 24 Apr 2009 20:30:46 +0000

Thanks Jason,
Your post is really inspirating and exciting. I’m actually doing an undergraduate research on Twitter’s application to business.
I’m going to do a case study on Comcast using Twitter and plan to analyze and categorize the tweets, and finally to come to some sort of conclusion.
I’m still planning it and any comments or thoughts would be appreciated

By: julia

julia — Fri, 24 Apr 2009 16:56:21 +0000

Thanks Steve for the article -current and makes an interesting read.
When blogs first emerged and then became popular the CEOs and marketing people would blog. That was like giving people an inside look into the company. A personalised look.
On the other hand, Twitter gives the company an external magnifying glass into the world of the customer. Usually it is the user who will determine what it should be used for. Let the market or let the user decide. Twitter now and Twitter six months down the line may be different.
Personally, I still am not convinced how it can help in marketing my company’s products.

By: AW

AW — Fri, 24 Apr 2009 16:53:35 +0000

Marketing people, talking about Twitter amongst eachother, building up an internal hype – so more marketing people jump on the bandwagon and see NO real increase in business from it.
But, as they say, “Gosh it’s cool! and all the other marketing geeks are talking about it. It must work – Chris Brogan said so. Blah blah.”
Your customers don’t care all that much. They want prompt and friendly service, whether that comes in the form of 24 hr customer phone support (with no wait), Twitter customer service, instant online chat sessions, a quick and fair response to their concerns.
So, I ask, WHAT is the big deal in terms or Twitter for customer service?
P.S. Before everyone jumps to Twitter’s defense here, note that I do tweet and it does work – for certain things (like seo, community building, inane nonsense, etc…) I’m just sick of hearing about it being hailed as the second coming. It doesn’t toast my bread, make my bread or solve world peace.

By: Shopping_SF

Shopping_SF — Tue, 21 Apr 2009 00:33:57 +0000

Great article! I agree that Twitter can be a useful consumer rep tool.
However, let’s also consider he source itself…Twitter.
I sent a request for assistance to them. Four months ago. Received no rely. I received an email three weeks ago saying they would get back with me in a few days.
No reply since.
Makes one think, huh?

By: Walter Bartner

Walter Bartner — Sun, 19 Apr 2009 19:58:34 +0000

I want to permanently disconnect from tweeter.
How do I do this please!
It’s next to impossible.

By: Jason Baer

Jason Baer — Fri, 17 Apr 2009 15:44:56 +0000

@Stuart – I think the reason for not jumping in is lack of coordination between offline service and Twitter service. Ends up being parallel efforts. The software I mentioned in the OP may be able to help that issue.
@Alan – I concur. Certainly, the “look at me” effect of doing Twitter customer service as an early adopter is attractive. Look at Ford, Comcast, Southwest, Jet Blue. All have received serious praise from mainstream media. Nothing to sneeze at.
@Joe – Bingo. As always, you’re dead on. Twitter customer service is but one tentacle in an emerging culture of truly customer first thinking, led by Net Promoter Score, etc. We will all benefit from this transformation (as consumers).
@Seth – Interesting thought. I wonder how long it will be before you can outsource Twitter customer service. I’d bet about 7 minutes…
@Marc – No question that the dedicated service portals have way more functionality, but lack the reach. I wonder if you couldn’t use Twitter to push people toward measuredup.com et al?
@Steve – I really enjoyed you post. Great thinking through of the processes for making Twitter and CRM sync up. Good stuff.

By: Steve Chipman

Steve Chipman — Thu, 16 Apr 2009 22:25:02 +0000

The lack of account history is a good point. I wrote a conceptual post about Twitter and customer support a while back that conceptualizes "scraping" all Twitter available profile information and also making Twitter screen name a CRM Contact field in order to correlate the Tweet Ticket with customer history. http://lexnetcg.com/blog/twitter/crm-and-twitter-integration/

By: Marc Karasu

Marc Karasu — Thu, 16 Apr 2009 21:36:19 +0000

Good article. Twitter is a useful customer service tool but it is not as powerful as a site like http://www.MeasuredUp.com that allows for tickets, comments and feedback. However, their is no ignoring the reach of Twitter that might nullify other sites better features.
A smart brand will use twitter as well as other social networking tools to augment Customer Service.