"Customer Service on Twitter: Successful Strategies" was presented at PubCon Vegas 2014 by Carolyn Shelby. This talk looks at how news organizations use social media (specifically Twitter) for customer service, track (or don't) sentiment, tools used, and how to deal with complaints from people who do not want a resolution.

1. Customer Service on Twitter
Successful Strategies
Carolyn Shelby
Director of SEO and SEM, Tribune Publishing

2. Customer Service is
still customer service…
You still do all the
same things to help
people with their
problems.
It’s just faster, easier,
and more public to
complain now.

3. “Traditional” CS via Twitter
• Monitor for brand terms and @ mentions via
HootSuite or TweetDeck, or some other tool.
• Respond in a timely and helpful fashion.
• Have someone/a process for actually,
meaningfully addressing customer complaints
or problems.

4. Reporting… usually
• Simply Measured, Trackur, and other tools
have great reports for quantifying social media
activity and sentiment.
• Sentiment is difficult to track when your brand
is frequently cited simply as a source of news
rather than THE news.

5. Our Normal Process
• Team of social media analysts monitoring via
HootSuite for brand terms, @mentions, and direct
conversations.
• Prompt acknowledgements of complaints or
comments.
• A triage process for routing complaints to
people/departments that can
*do something* about them

6. Special Situations/Events
• War room – constant, team monitoring from
a central location for the duration of the event.
Like during the relaunch of the LA Times…

8. General Recommendations
• For serious issues, move the conversation OFF of
Twitter (or social media in general) as quickly as
possible.
• Phone number to call, specific person to speak to, etc.
• Do not reply to complaints in a manner that lets
the world see the response… unless it’s necessary.
• No .@replys...

10. I assure you, there are a LOT of
people who seriously hate this guy.
And they have zero interest in being
happy with any kind of customer
service remedy offered to them.
You cannot make
*everyone* happy…
Some people want to stay mad.

11. When dealing with Extreme Haters…
• Be CALM, civil, and courteous.
• Do not be goaded into making snippy comments or
snide remarks.
• Reiterate your calm, logical statement a few times,
but then let the problem child cry it out alone.
• With patience (and luck), they will just look like a crazy-psycho
ranting to an empty room.

12. Carolyn Shelby
Director, SEO/SEM
Tribune Publishing
Twitter: @cshel
Email: cshelby@tribpub.com
Thank You!