Announcing new customer support features for businesses

Today we’re excited to announce new features to help users find and get help from businesses that provide support on Twitter. These complement previously announced improvements for customer service, which focused on features for businesses in Tweets and Direct Messages. These new features enable businesses to tell users they provide help on Twitter, indicate when they’re most active, and ensure people know they have the option to send them a Direct Message.

Businesses can now indicate that they provide support, which adds that information to suggestions when people search for a business, mention a business in a Tweet, or find a business in Direct Messages. Additionally, businesses can display hours of availability on their profile to help set people’s expectations for when they are likely to reply. These businesses’ profiles will also display a more prominent button to start a Direct Message so people know the business offers support privately.

Companies using these features love how they enable them to better serve their customers and tell the world they provide support on Twitter.

These features can be activated on a new Customer support settings page on the Twitter Dashboard website. All of them require a business to first enable the setting to receive Direct Messages from anyone. Twitter users regularly tell us how important it is that they have the choice to communicate about support issues via Tweets or Direct Messages, since sometimes support issues require sharing personal information or longer descriptions of issues.

All of these features are available for businesses to enable today.

We are committed to making Twitter the best place for people to talk to businesses. This release builds on previously released Direct Message links and Customer Feedback cards to help businesses provide better service on Twitter. Each has shown great success. On average, Customer Feedback requests receive a response more than 60% of the time. Many brands have told us that is ~5–10x the average response rate they get for other feedback surveys. Early use has also shown that customers who are sent a Direct Message link follow through to actually send a message roughly 30% more often than those who are asked to send a message via text only.

People and businesses tell us time and again that they love the relationships they can develop on Twitter. Businesses already helping customers on Twitter, or those who want to encourage people to engage, can enable these features via Twitter Dashboard, under Settings. Expect more as we continue to help businesses deliver a better customer experience on Twitter.