Monetizing Microblogging: customer service, marketing, and feedback mechanisms into the clear

Microblogging services like Twitter, Jaiku, and Pownce are gaining steam, popularity, and new users by the bucketful every day.  This article, however, is not about why I like to use these kinds of applications or how much I look forward to getting Twitter updates by person x.  No, this article is about the (as of yet unexplored) applications of microblogging services that could bring them into the black on the income statement.  What is this untapped use I write of?  Two words: customer service.  

It is very often that one sees such statements as “It is our mission to bring the best products to our customers.”  Some companies do a very good job of listening to their customers and meeting their mission statements, resulting in great customer satisfaction, and (more likely than not) great returns.  Other firms don’t fare very well in this department and don’t do a very good job in listening to the voice of the customer.  Whatever the scenario is, it has become very difficult for large corporations to listen to their customers.

This new “difficulty” has mostly been a result of information becoming more decentralized: we went from having print media (newspapers and magazines) to wide broadcast media (TV and radio) to the internet – where inputs can come from places not related to the company, such as online forums, chat sessions, and online user groups.  Some of these extremely valuable places of feedback don’t stay online long enough for a company’s employees to notice them.  Chat sessions, for example, aren’t even documented most of the time.  ”How can this be,” you ask?

On one hand, the internet has made communication easy with tools such as email, IM, chat, forum boards, and SMS.  On the other hand, the internet has also made it easier for people to interact on a global scale, increasing interaction and communication exponentially.  Such large-scale communication has made acquiring feedback difficult for some firms, especially ones that either serve large markets, sell many products, operate internationally, or perform a combination of all three.  Collecting feedback about a company or its product has become somewhat analagous to searching for a needle in a haystack.  Sure, most companies have Feedback and Contact Us sections on their web sites, but there are a few problems with acquiring feedback this way:

1. Not all users go there to leave feedback.
2. Those who do leave feedback either get a heartless, automated response email, or aren’t even informed that their input has been heard or has actually been applied and/or considered  in the next design of the product.  This leads to
3. Decreased participation on company-issued feedback mechanisms and a lesser opinion about the company in question.  People will think that “Nobody is even going to read or take seriously the information I just wrote to company x on its feedback website, so why did I just spend ten minutes wasting my time writing about how the product can be improved?”  After this, it’s a downward spiral that repeats itself and never ends.

These issues call for a different type of feedback mechanism – one where people’s suggestions and feedback about a company’s products get either

• Rewarded,
• Compensated, or
• Somehow acknowledged (by a human).
  • Automated emails don’t count… They’re so very “web 1.0″.

So where do we start in the process of designing these new “social customer service and marketing” experiences?  Yep, you guessed it: the microblogging networks.

*Note: since I know and use Twitter the most out of all microblogging network services, I will rely on its feature set the most in this article (no matter how many times or how long it’s been “broken”).  Moreover, most of the suggested uses I propose will seem a little “janky,” and that’s the point: currently, real-world uses are simply non-existent.  But with the help of a current microblogging company or a new one, it can be done.

First things first: a company can establish an account on Twitter and send out periodic updates such as new product announcements, changes to the product line-up, seasonal specials, promotional buying codes, and everything else far and in-between.  Twitter users interested in the company can follow it on Twitter and those who do are guaranteed to get updates in their Twitter feed that the company posts (or Tweets, as it is called by Twitter folk).  A great benefit of being on the receiving end of messages such as these is that posts on Twitter are limited to 140 characters, meaning no Biblically-long press releases that put you to sleep after the second paragraph; when on Twitter, all updates and announcements from companies have to be straight and to the point.  Here’s an example:

“Annoucning the iPhone 10G. Starting at $100. 80GB of storage, T1 download speeds in the palm of your hand. Your life, in your pocket. Available 7/1/2012. Visit apple.com/iphone.” Posted by AppleInc.

or,

“A kind reminder from your friends at Procter & Gamble that the Crest toothpaste you purchased last week might contain chemicals known to interfere with digestion processes. Recall information available at P&G.com/recall.” Posted by Procter & Gamble, Inc.

The great thing is that this can be done now, without any special modifications to Twitter, by any company who wants to participate.  Geek clothing company Uneek Geek , that prides itself on its unique and beautiful designs, already doing this (note: Uneek Geek is a sponsor).  Moreover, this would only work within a large company if one person (or one very tightly-integrated department) were responsible for the publishing of Tweets.  Otherwise, the message would be diluted.

Second things… second: Twitter has a nifty feature, it’s called “@”.  It is also known as direct reply.  Typing @ followed by a Twitter user name will send a direct reply to that user.  For example, typing @sashok followed by whatever you want to say will send a direct reply to me (my Twitter name is sashok).  Twitterers can use this direct reply feature to provide the company with valuable feedback.  Let’s imagine that Joe Consumer just received Apple’s update above on Twitter.  He can immediately reply to Apple by typing (@AppleInc) and say something like:

“Wow!  That’s great news.  I hope you were able to add cut-and-paste – something that has been missing in the iPhone for the last six generations”.

In a similar way, the preceding response can read something like:

“Will you please add MMS support as a software update… please?  Pretty please…”

Communications channels become two-way streets this and are much more open this way, with a company being in a position to quickly reply to all suggestions.  By replying to Joe Consumer, the company will have already solved our first goal above – acknowledgement.  Within the company, these suggestions can be categorized and sent up to the right people (software developers and iPhone engineers, in our case).  By doing so, companies are able to receive improvement suggestions in a way that’s fast and inexpensive, while satisfying those who make those suggestions (with quick, personal responses).  As a side benefit, this also adds a human component to a company.

The best for last: monetization.  Currently, microblogging services either have none what-so-ever or very little when it comes to revenue and profits.  Twitter is rumored to be working on a plan to bring in revenue and Pownce has the “freemium” model in place by offering premium services for paid users.  Both companies have somewhat high operating costs – dealing with incoming and outgoing text messages, server upkeep and capacity expansion, to name a few (no, I haven’t seen any real financial info… yet).  However, both companies’ services can be sold as packages to companies and corporations wishing to improve customer satisfaction, marketing, and outreach to specific audiences.

Twitter can offer firms the ability to auto-categorize responses and conduct surveys.  If, for example, a Tweet comes to Apple asking the above question about MMS, it can be automatically routed to the “questions about MMS list” within Apple’s (highly modified for large amounts of data) Twitter interface and an Apple Twitter representative can answer it.  Survey conducting is self-explanatory: Apple can Twitter-out a question asking which of the following features users would like to see the most in the next update to the iPhone:

1. Google apps push and sync capabilities (Gmail, Calendar, Docs)
2. A2DP Bluetooth
3. More storage capacity

Users can vote, 1, 2, or 3 by texting a direct reply.  Twitter can provide the tech infrastrure for Apple to tie into in order to count the responses and then make decisions internally.

Survey participation can even be rewarded.  If a Twitter user sends a reply to Apple’s survey, a special promo code can be sent back to the user to use in the Apple online store.  This takes care of being rewarded and compensated – as per our goals set out in the beginning.  To generate even more feedback, companies using Twitter can make a contest where every 1000th respondent to a company’s survey wins a free item.

If companies embrace microblogging services as a support a tool, the revenues generated from these new clients will become the bread and butter of microblogging services and communities such as Twitter.  Because of the very social nature of these services, they can bring a lot to the table by providing personalized customer service and marketing services for businesses, introduce a quality source of user feedback, while maintaining high morale of those who provide this feedback.

However, my model does have some limitations and exceptions.

1. It can’t be used very effectively for tech support on a case-by-case basis, so don’t expect to see Twitter conversations start up containing instructions on how to replace the hard drive in an iMac.  Even so, this limitation can be overcome by providing the user with a case number and the correct toll-free number to call in regards to the issue he/she is having.
2. Whether a company’s efforts pay off using one of these microblogging services greatly depends on the culture of the company.  This is a very complicated topic and is beyond the scope of this article, but (even though I used it as an example) I can’t imagine Apple providing an open, immediate, and direct answer to the following question: “When are you planning on including MMS support in the iPhone 3G?”  To this question, I would expect Apple to answer “We do not discuss unannounced or rumored features” or “We are constantly reviewing our products and services to improve their quality.  At this time, we are not prepared to discuss this particular feature.”  That’s just Apple, however.
   And yet there is something potentially powerful about Twitter being a service as I propose: it might just “open Apple up” and turn the company around from a closed-lipped beauty to a “talkative pretty”.
3. Companies that do choose to participate and improve customer service, marketing, and feedback on such services have some costs to pay and decisions to make.  Costs such as new employees to do the “Twitter thing.”  Decision such as which questions to answer and which to ignore.
4. When a company exposes itself in this way, it can easily become flooded with useless information.  Nothing prevents Twitter users to “swarm” a company and bombard it with questions, silly comments, and irrelevant material.

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Posted in Business, Cloud Computing, Decisions, Featured, Marketing, Microblogging, Monetization, Uncategorized