Twitter now lets brands list customer support information in profiles

Twitter has launched a way for brands to better set customer expectations when using the service for support questions. Companies are now able to affix a support label on various accounts and even specify the hours when someone will be on call to provide assistance. Twitter has also tweaked the Direct Message button for these accounts so it’s more prominent, in case the conversation needs to go private.

These features are available for businesses today, and everyone else should start to see them in Twitter’s apps over the next few weeks.

For many, Twitter has been a place for conversation, whether it’s among friends and strangers or between an individual and a company. If you’ve been using the service for a while, chances are that you may have seen at least one person tweet at an airline, cable company, or store expressing outrage or asking a question. Twitter has become the place for conversations and so this latest feature, while not overly major, is still important in the company recognizing a need brands have.

There are some brands that have made it a point to list their hours of operation for customer support right on their Twitter bio, but now there are dedicated areas for those details. So if you’re only available Monday through Friday between 9 a.m. and 5 p.m., now you can list that in the same place as other companies do so that customers can find the information easily. And if a particular account is wholly focused on support, such as @TMobileHelp or @ComcastCares, then there’s a new setting that will denote it as such when a user looks for the account.

“The introduction of the message button and support indicators are a great addition to our Twitter profile,” said satellite TV service Sky UK in a statement. “They help customers identify our customer service channel and start conversations with us quickly and easily.”

Above: Customer support settings page on Twitter’s account dashboard.

Image Credit: Twitter

All of these features can be instantly activated through a new customer support settings page found on Twitter’s website. Businesses need to already have set their account to receive direct messages from anyone.

This is the latest release from Twitter since August, when the company launched a button enabling users to send direct messages right from any website, which will be great for customer support. Additionally, Twitter released a customer feedback tool and added support for deep linking in February, all in the interest of boosting its service capabilities. However, while this is good for brands on Twitter, it’s not the first time we’re seeing these customer support features — Facebook has offered similar capabilities for a few months on Pages, highlighting how responsive a company is on the social network and providing quick access to message them.