An inside look at customer care for Canadians on Twitter

Quality customer care is central to the success of any organization. In recent years, interacting with brands has always been a key part of the Twitter experience for Canadians and have their needs met, and often exceeded, by Twitter’s real-time suite of features and innovations.

Brand account are the #1 type of account that Canadians follow, more than celebrities, sports teams or politicians. Our research also showed that a strong presence on Twitter conveys access, responsiveness and innovation. People agree that brands with a strong Twitter presence are:

• Quicker at getting back to customers (71%)
• More responsive to their customers (75%)
• Care more about their customers think (71%)

There is also a big opportunity to improve customer care through brand interactions. In fact, nearly 75% of Canadians on Twitter say it’s important for a brand to have a strong social media presence. This presence also impacts future consumption behaviours, since 58% of Canadians on Twitter say they’re more likely to continue using a product or service if the brand is accessible via social channels.

Canadian brands are taking notice and actively use Twitter as a primary customer care channels Here are five fresh insights that demonstrate the investments that Canadian brands are making in Twitter:

1. @RogersHelps is one of the most active Canadian customer care accounts on platform. The account has been helping Canadians for close to a decade (its first Tweet was sent in April 2009) and has sent more than 490,000 Tweets during that time.
2. @AirCanada, @TELUSsupport and @TTChelps are three other Canadian customer care accounts that have more than a quarter million Tweets each.
3. Westjet was one of the first major Canadian brands to join Twitter and recently celebrated the 10-year anniversary of its @WestJet account. This account is unique as it provides customer care to Canadians and other travelers 24 hours/day, seven days/week.
4. Other Canadian brands that offer customer care via Twitter seven days/week includes CIBC (@cibc), Mountain Equipment Co-op (@mec) and Cogeco Cable (@cogecohelps)
5. Many Canadian brands have multiple Twitter accounts to offer dedicated customer care in both English and French. Examples include GO Transit (@GoTransit and @GOtransitFR), McDonalds Canada McDonald’s Canada (@McD_Canada and @McD_CanadaFR) and Walmart Canada (@WalmartCanada and @WalmartCanadaFr).

We’ve also seen that faster response times to customer service questions significantly increase willingness to spend in future. Many brands would love to invest in a 24/7 customer service teams but often this isn’t realistic or scalable. In lieu, new innovations such as Twitter DM chatbots are alternatives to bridging those gaps while still delivering the real-time, personalized experiences Canadians want. The appetite is there as third of Canadian Twitter users have DMed with a brand, seeking information and customer service.

Once consumers have personally interacted with a chatbot on Twitter, they recognize that automated information by DM is fast, current, and direct in addressing some of the pillars of stellar customer service. Once Canadians have seen one in action, 64% are confident that chatbots can meet their needs.

When customers use chatbots, brand perceptions improve as well. For the travel category, for example, we saw a significant increase across all metrics of brand perception, including:

• quick at getting back to customers: +135%
• innovative: +135%
• responsive: +113%
• transparent: +86%
• would recommend to others: +61%
• trustworthy: +38%

Look for Canadian brands to expand their customer care offerings on Twitter in the years to come and for new innovations to continue to transform the customer experience online.