Staples, the office supplies retailer, has used its Twitter account to improve customer service, gain marketing insights and boost sales. The tool came to the rescue when a coupon code on its Staples.com site malfunctioned during the holiday shopping season last November. While that prompted a lot of customer anger, the Twitter account became a key asset in damage control and in quelling the concerns of upset shoppers.
Since then, the brand has increased its Twitter reps from a handful to 20 and grown its follower base to 32,200. While not huge, the followers are generating a return on the investment in Twitter, the company says. To encourage people to follow its Tweets, it has employed giveaway promotions for new-to-market technology products like netbooks.
To manage its Twitter account, the company recruited specialists from within its customer care department who had been simultaneously handling phone, e-mail, and chat. That also called for new training, so these reps wouldn’t just use copy-and-paste response sentences that they may have become accustomed to employing during instant chat sessions. The reps are trained to help followers who ask about items find them by providing links to specific pages at Staples.com.
The full story is on ClickZ.
