There is no question that Twitter is all the rage – it is immediate and allows for easy searching - it has been described as the pulse of everything that is happening. But if you are searching or monitoring activity (as everyone probably should) and you find a customer expressing an issue, should you jump in?  Very often I see @replies similar to the one below:

First, let me say that I have spoken to esurance and they do have a Twitter strategy and this response is as planned. We now read continuous articles and blogposts about companies using Twitter to provide service; Comcast jumps to mind but DirecTV, esurnace, Southwest Airlines, BestBuy and Allstate among others all have Twitter service programs. There are enough programs in place to suggest that this is moving beyond ‘bleeding edge’ and could be ready to ‘cross the chasm’. But for companies that do not have a service strategy, and this includes most insurance companies, it is still very tempting to reach out to a unhappy customer, why wouldn’t you? But the whole idea of ’jumping’ on tweets can be a minefield for companies that do not have a strategy.

Here are some of the considerations:

• Twitter is fast moving and by and large conversations are not (yet) linked to traditional CRM systems. A disjointed customer experience might result.
• In regulated industries such as pharmaceutical and insurance, what are the reporting requirements and limitations – should we be concerned about privacy and hippa rules being breached inadvertantly?
• Is Twitter a ‘tri-age service’, helping customers navigate complex service structures and channels? If so, is the problem really the service channel complexity?
• Customer service is increasingly seen as 24/7, can Twitter (lets call it Twitserv) provide that level of service? I noticed recently a ‘tweet’ from one major company wishing everyone a happy July 4th holiday saying the team were largely offline at family events over the next few days.  
• Should Twitter be implimented an early warning signal identifying upcoming problems so that call centers can be briefed and prepared for? Comcast uses case studies in this category.
• Who should man the Twitserv team? There seems to be a tendancy to provide service by highly skilled individuals; these prople would never apply for a traditional call center customer service position, often coming from PR, brand management or customer relationship backgrounds. These people are perfect for fixing tricky problems but is this a resonable long term strategy?
• Should Twitserv personnel take account of  ‘follower’ count, picking and choosing ‘important’ customers that need help. There is plenty of evidence to suggest that this happens. It does result in good blog write ups applauding the twitter response but is it the right pproach?
• Do you create corporate multi-person Twitter identities eg Twelpforce from BestBuy or individual ‘personal’ identities such as ComcastBonnie.
• Do you ever migrate Twitserv into a mature service channel or is it always a tactical low volume quick response mechanism?
• What happens if TwitServ is successful? Can you, or should you, double, or treble staffing or is there a limit to the value of this ‘image’ management?
• Should you put parallel resource into every significant social media presence – Facebook, Ning, myspace, etc.

Twitserve can be a powerful tool but after speaking to many organizations, Twitter activity can easily by-pass the service chain of command. This can create many problems in the future so before you reach out and ask “can i help you?” – think about how the role, the mission, the goals, the interface and the limitations you want to impose. At the very least, define a strategy because doing nothing is not acceptable. Customers are saying things about their level of service for all to hear and the worse case would be that the only people not listening is you.