One of Microsoft’s public relations and customer service strategies in recent times seems to center around the popular messaging service Twitter. Microsoft did include Twitter in the Windows 7 promotion and there are other official Microsoft services and divisions on Twitter that make use of this new way of communicating. One of the latest divisions to join ranks of the Microsoft cohorts at Twitter is the Microsoft Customer Service which have established their own support channel at MicrosoftHelps.
This gives Windows 7 users another option of contacting the Microsoft Customer Service division. How does it work? A new support request or question can be directed at the Microsoft Support team by sending a message to their official Twitter message.
The limitations of Twitter make this a less than ideal method of contacting support for questions that require in depth explanation. It can however be a quick and efficient way to get a response for basic or short questions. Questions that have already been answered include hardware problems (network adapter or video card not working), other errors users encountered in the operating system or software related questions.
The support is currently limited to Windows 7 but Microsoft stated that they are planning to expand the scope of their support over time.
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Very, very helpful post – thank you so much Valeria!
This comment was originally posted on Conversation Agent
Hi Valeria-
Thanks for mentioning Spiral16 in your list of online monitoring dashboards. Identifying influencers is so key to brand success and having a well thought out Twitter plan can only come from the knowledge you gain in that area. Great post!
Eric Melin
@Spiral16
This comment was originally posted on Conversation Agent
This post is a great resource. I think the notion of simply responding to a customer service issue via Twitter is powerful. Taking the actual handling of the issue off line is a great piece of advice… the short 140 character response is just to show that you are listening. Thanks for the insight.
This comment was originally posted on Conversation Agent
@John – curious as to how specifically it’s helpful (always looking to turn data points into action for future reference ;)
@Eric – thank you for stopping by. Yes, I took a look at your dashboard courtesy of Kelly Kearney a few weeks back and this was the perfect place for it.
@Russ – exactly. It shows (good) attitude and intent. It shows the company is listening and wants to do something about it.
This comment was originally posted on Conversation Agent
Valeria,
First, very useful post, lots of great information. My comments are specific to Customer Service and Twitter. It is an interesting channel for communication and escalation, but it I think that more often than not masks a problem. Here is what I posted on my blog:
"The need to broadcast a problem to the world would not be necessary if the customer had confidence that their issue would be solved timely and to their satisfaction."
So, monitoring and watching is certainly important, but often masks another issue:
"If your customers are trying to get your attention on Twitter to solve a specific ‘me only’ problem, your processes are either horribly inefficient, broken or you have product issues."
The exception to this are companies (like JetBlue) who are prepared and ready to handle direct requests sent to twitter and it is considered just another channel.
In summary, yes it is important do what you suggest – but, more importantly to understand why you are doing it and fix the root cause.
Mitch
http://mjayliebs.wordpress.com
This comment was originally posted on Conversation Agent
Great post. The biggest topic of side conversation today has been about setting up and deploying social within your company.
My viewpoint, both from the narrow Social Support Community (SSC), and from the broader social business strategy perspective, is that this must be jointly owned by customer service and marketing. This joint ownership can best leverage the tools discussed and strategies to provide customers with the best experience possible.
Keep up the great writing, always great stuff.
This comment was originally posted on Conversation Agent
Valeria,
You always do great posts, but you outdid yourself with this one!
I have already shared this post with people already and will continue to share it . . . it is a great resource for businesses starting to use Twitter as a customer service tool.
All this being said, the business managers using these tools and venturing into this space are still the minority. From my perspective, there are challenges in getting managers and their employees up to speed on the power of all these resources. . . .
Fortunately, there are great writers and thought leaders like you that can help them make the challenges easier to manage . . .
This comment was originally posted on Conversation Agent
@Mitch – agree with you that companies need to fix the problem, which is often embedded in the regular customer service channels. Having said that, I believe there is a proactive role that marries with the social business where customer service has a legitimate reason to be involved.
@John – interesting exchange here and on Twitter. Thank you for getting involved. As you’ll have the opportunity to see tomorrow, I believe that there’s a broader conversation organizations need to have with the marketplace. And yes, marketing and customer service are natural partners. I know for a fact, that some organizations are integrating the two.
@Mary Ann – thank you so much for the feedback and for sharing the information. Glad you found the post helpful. Often we can be more persuasive by sharing the work of others in our organizations – funny how that happens.
This comment was originally posted on Conversation Agent
Thank you for this list. I knew of some of these but I hadn’t heard of all of them. Knowledge is power and it is good to learn from someone who has been there and done that.
Thanks for coming to Detroit too!
This comment was originally posted on Conversation Agent
Twitter should look at this post themselves and apply some of its suggestions as their own customer service is woeful.
I’ve only waited some 3 months (and counting!) for a response from Twitter support.
This comment was originally posted on Conversation Agent
This is the first time I heard of using twitter for customer service. I know that twitter is used for marketing, business, search, etc. This post is remarkable. I gained immense knowledge after reading this post .Also increased some knowledge about how to use twitter tools to keep track of tweets. I already know some tools but, here there is lot of useful information to be known. Thanks for sharing this amazing article.
This comment was originally posted on Conversation Agent