Dive Brief:
- Customer service oriented brands like Starbucks and Airbnb are using the “featured tweets” section on their profiles to highlight customer interactions, as reported by Adweek.
- Twitter rolled out featured tweets to more brands after a beta test. The feature breaks up brand profile pages into three sections where the brand can highlight around 10 tweets as well as images before the profile turns into the typical chronological listing of tweets.
- An advantage of featured tweets for brands using Twitter for customer service is it allows them to control the first set of images and tweets profile viewers get to see, burying any negative responses “below the fold” so to speak.
Dive Insight:
Twitter may be having a bad year on a number of fronts, from unhappy investors to flagging ad revenue to stagnant user growth, but brands still lean on the micro-blogging platform for customer service interactions as consumers have become accustomed to taking to Twitter with comments, including complaints.
One study by RBC Capital Markets found that 30% of respondents don’t spend any ad budget on Twitter, a number up from 25% from just this February. For its part, Twitter understands this shift and in September rolled out new customer service capabilities such as allowing brands to access a new Customer Support settings page that enables them to say whether they provide support on their Twitter pages and display what times support will be available. And all Twitter users can direct message brand accounts instead of tweeting the complaint or question publicly.
Tapping Twitter for customer service is effective according to joint research from Twitter and Applied Marketing Science that found users are willing to spend anywhere from 3% to 20% more on products from businesses that engage with them through the platform, and customers who receive responses are 30% more likely to recommend the brand to others with 44% more likely to share their experience online and off.
