Its Only Twitter…Or is it?
Image Courtesy of: Tony Gigov
I’ve been noticing something with Twitter, the brands or companies I tweet about, who respond appropriately, I have a more positive association with them. It may seem obvious, respond back to customer tweets=more positive views, but a lot of companies are not responding timely or appropriately. I looked back on my twitter and out of the four brands that I talked about on my feed, within the past few weeks, one responded within one hour of my tweet, two responded over 24 hours after my tweet, and the last never responded.
The company that is doing a great job with Twitter is #FedEx. I tweeted that I was waiting for my new computer and within an hour someone from FedEx tweeted me asking if they could help track my package. Within 30 minutes I knew the exact time it would arrive. I was blown away, it was such a good use of Social Media. My experience with them was powerful, and next time I am looking for a company to ship my packages, you can bet who I will use.
On the other hand the brands that I tweeted and took a few days to get back to me, I view a little more negatively than I used to. Its not that I am never going back again but eh…I wish they had a faster response time. It also annoyed me a little that I took the time to tweet them and it took two days to get a response or nothing at all. To ask a customer what they had to eat 2 days after having lunch at their restaurant is lame (I couldn’t even remember). Now, I’m sure they probably don’t have as much time or money devoted to social media as FedEx, but to never respond to a customers positive comment is really unacceptable. Am I asking too much?
This goes to show that social media is a full-time job and requires a lot of time and energy for a company to use it appropriately. A recent study about twitter on Mashable showed 79 percent of Tweeters are more likely to recommend a company that they are following and 67 percent more likely to buy the product. I should think a positive experience with that company on Twitter would also affect those followers.
