Twitter, the 140 character social network, has announced the launch of a new customer service chatbot feature for brands. This has been launched in the bid to encourage brands to use Twitter as their customer service platform. For a while, brands have already been able to create automated direct messages, that are triggered when someone likes their account. However, this feature will allow more in-depth actions.
It’s only been a couple of weeks since I was talking about how brands can make the most out of Twitter, and now they’ve launched something that makes it even better for brands. You can read up on that post here.
How Will It Work?
Well, it’s fairly simple in the way it will work. When a customer tweets a brand with a complaint or enquiry, this will prompt a private conversation between the brand and customer. Then, a variety of buttons will come up that will let them become more specific about their enquiry. For example, they’ve tweeted a company regarding the status of their order, the chat will open up, and they’ll be prompted to give their tracking number. Then the brand can find out the location of the order, and reply to let the customer know.
There are already a handful of brands using the new chatbot service, including, Evernote, Pizza Hut, Spotify, Tesco, Norton and Airbnb. So, hopefully this means it’s going to become a much needed success for Twitter!
This new feature will make things a lot simpler for brands, as I know from experience, that when you tweet a brand, they often have to tweet you back to tell you to direct message them, then you have to reiterate what you’ve just asked, and then they may have to manually ask you a series of questions to help you out. Now it’s done with just the chatbot popping up and then a few clicks of a button.