Twitter is not going to let Facebook win every battle. With Direct Message bots, the company is keen to regain its position as the leading customer service platform.
Twitter is often seen as the best platform for customer service. One may argue that it’s mostly because Twitter is the favourite place for customers to complain, which is quite true. However, with the introduction of bots, Twitter has a real chance to steal the spotlight from Facebook and become (once again) the number one customer service social platform.
For Twitter, bots consist of automated “welcome” replies when customers send a DM to a brand. These “welcome” messages will not only acknowledge their demand, but will also come with a selection of “quick replies” that will allow users to choose between pre-populated queries which complete the most usual tasks: e.g. “what’s the status of my order?”
Get faster and easier help from businesses. Try it now with @EvernoteHelps and @PizzaHut. #CarpeDM pic.twitter.com/T8vHnLESEM
— Twitter Marketing (@TwitterMktg) November 1, 2016
Twitter says “these features are designed to help businesses create rich, responsive, full-service experiences that directly advance the work of customer service teams and open up new possibilities for how people engage with businesses on Twitter.” The truth is, however, that bots are great for brands because they will push customers to take their questions and grievances to DMs rather than sharing them publicly.
And that’s a big win for image-conscious brands and also a big win for Twitter, which has been handling negativism on its platform for the past couple of years, mostly unsuccessfully.
Pizza Hut and Evernote are among the first brands to have set up customer service bots. You can try it now by sending them a DM about your late pizza or a very unproductive productivity feature on Evernote…
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