Do You Know What Your Customers Are Saying About Your Business?
June 5, 2008 by Yvonne Russell
There’s a lesson to be learned about customer service from Twitter’s recent outages. Have you discovered Twitter yet?
Despite the current issues, I highly recommend it. At first I didn’t “get” Twitter, but I’ve had a change of heart.
I’m a big fan of Twitter for business and for communication. I’ve found Twitter great as a microblogging business tool, for research as well as for sharing ideas.
Twitter is growing, and maybe too quickly. It’s a victim of its own success with a huge number of users. Lately, Twitter has been flipping out and unable to manage the load. With a strong fan base who sing its praises, most users have been willing to cut Twitter some slack.
Start Up Spark’s Take On Twitter Customer Service
I was interested to read Shannon Cherry’s take on the Twitter issues at Start Up Spark. Shannon shares the latest on how Twitter management is handling (mishandling?) their customer service.
Shannon says
Twitter didn’t communicate the issues effectively, and now all users hear is what they consider “a defensive developer covering his…” (well, you know)…
We all know that sometimes technical difficulties are unavoidable. But it’s the reaction to those difficulties that makes a good company a great one.
At best, Twitter has some bridges to mend with customers. Ironically, many are using Twitter itself to air their dissatisfaction and frustrations with the service.
Twitter has the perfect platform to communicate with customers, and to inform customers of updates in a positive upbeat way. Some of Twitter’s customers do this with panache.
Companies Monitoring Customer Feedback On Twitter
Zappos and Southwest Airlines both have a strong presence on Twitter. Employees monitor customer feedback and respond to them. Good news spreads and these companies have good Twitter “press” which spreads virally. Comcast, the web hosting company, does the same thing.
How Do You Find Out What Customers Are Saying About Your Home Business?
Perhaps you don’t use Twitter, but we are all interested in knowing what customers think about our business.
- How do you monitor what your customers are saying about your home business?
- When you get feedback, how do you handle it?
- If you use Twitter, I’d love to hear how you use it as a business tool.
© Customer Service Image courtesy of Yvonne Russell at Grow Your Writing Business.com
Customer service and customer relations are very important for maintaining your business. Encourage customer feedback and learn to handle it in a diplomatic way. Sometimes, no matter what you do, you won’t satisfy a customer and are better off without them. However, try, as much as possible, to have the parting amicable.
I haven’t become a Twitter user yet, so haven’t been involved in the current situation. It sounds like growing pains resulted from fast growth. Unfortunately, in today’s “instant results” world, many people aren’t patient and are quick to place blame…but not on themselves. Something we need to keep in mind as business owners.
Twitter is well worth a try. Plurk is a new one now too… hard to keep up with them all.