Consider watching Twitter in real time for mention of your brand name. It’s as simple as heading to “SearchTwitter“and typing in the terms you want to watch. Below a search for Time Warner:

Have your customer service reps keep a tab with the search and check every so often, or use a desktop client like “TweetDeck” that will alert you for every instance of your tracked words.

This is also an example of how Twitter can be faster than email or phone communication – offering it as an option for Twitter users to contact your customer service reps directly rather than blasting a tweet to everyone can help avoid rants in the public forum.

Quick response is optimal, but any response is better than no response. How you handle positive/negative tweets is up to you, but the first step is to create that feedback loop so you can hear what people are saying about you.

More about Twitter and customer service:

• Is there a change in how customers’ concerns are addressed?
• How does the communication with the customer change?

Related posts:

1. Is customer service the new marketing?
2. A new way of managing customer relations
3. Collecting unhappy Deutsche Bahn customers from Twitter
4. How to use Youtube to improve customer service?
5. Social media changes customer service landscape