Customer Service on Twitter: Does Your Software Documentation Pass the Twitter Test?

People are increasingly turning to Twitter to get customer support. Reaching out to a company on Twitter is simple and fast. But all companies that offer customer support via Twitter struggle with one question:

How do you answer customer questions in 140 characters or less?

The answer is that sometimes you can’t. Some answers require more detail. The trick is to optimize your online content for Twitter support. All you need is a Twitter account and a willingness to rethink how you structure and deliver your online documentation.

Optimizing your responses for 140 characters

If customers are going to ask for support in 140 characters then you need to respond in 140 characters. Let’s say your customer asks, “How do I integrate my account with x service?” on Twitter. You obviously can’t explain every detail in 140 characters and responding across multiple tweets can get really tedious. That isn’t what Twitter is good at.

But Twitter is really good at sharing links. So, instead of trying to provide all of the details in your tweet you need to share a link to your online documentation that has the answer your customer needs. On Twitter you need to point customers to the answer they want instead of trying to write that answer in 140 characters or less.

Do your docs pass the Twitter test?

But this won’t work if your online documentation isn’t optimized for use on Twitter. How do your get your online documentation ready for Twitter? They key is to have many small help topics that focus on specific questions your customers have.

Take this test. Look at the last 20 or so questions you’ve received in your support queue. How many could you respond to with a single tweet? Your tweet should look something like this:

@customer Here is how you do that: http://link_to_your_answer_in_your_online_help_system

If you can’t respond with a link that points exactly to the answer your customer needs then your online documentation has failed the Twitter test. It doesn’t matter if the answer is in your documentation “somewhere”. If you can’t send a url that points exactly to that answer you fail the test.

Many organizations fail the Twitter test because they clump too many help topics onto a single help page. We call this connecting your documentation with cement. What you want to do is connect your documentation with velcro.

If you want to learn a little more about what it means to connect your docs with velcro so that they can easily be pulled apart then watch this video, “Connect Your Software Documentation with Velcro”.

Offering customer support on Twitter doesn’t have to be hard. If you take the time to organize your online documentation you will find that you will be able to quickly answer questions and thrill your customers.