By Danny Cardozo | @DannyLCT

Twitter is appealing to businesses by adding an automated chat, hours of chat service and rate of responsiveness. This update comes at the heels of a massive restructuring with intent to appeal to potential buyers, which included discontinuing Vine, allowing more character-count flexibility, and the launch of Periscope Producer.

From a follower’s standpoint, you’ll be able to live chat with company accounts that have made the feature available by clicking Message below the account’s profile picture. You’ll be greeted with a customized automated message, and in some cases you’ll be able to choose from a list of options to determine the reason for your visit. If the automated responses don’t  address your concerns, you’ll be instantly connected to a human representative. Moreover, typical hours of responsiveness are displayed to best determine the length of your visit.

For companies using Twitter, setting live chat can be done in a few simple steps. You’ll first have to access Twitter’s dashboard through this link . Once you’ve arrived, the company must first allow anyone (including users not following them) to message them by checking off the appropriate column. You will also have to do the same with the Support Account settings, which displays to the public that your account provides Customer Support.  

An optional time responsiveness feature will also let your customers know which times and days are best to reach you through Customer Support or through tweets.

But perhaps the most nifty feature of all is the automated responses. This will allow Customer Support to run smoothly for both the business and the customer. In the same settings page, the company is able to provide a welcome message, which will automatically appear the moment the consumer opens your direct message box. Twitter also added “Quick Replies” to their customer-oriented themed updates. But unlike the welcome message, you must affiliate your account with approved chatbot developers partnering with Twitter such as Sprout Social and Assist. (To see a full list, click here.)

As of now, companies like Pizza Hut, Spotify and Norton have embraced this new powerful feature. Evernote is a great example of the how companies of any size or trade can benefit from this tool. They partnered with Sprout Social to direct customers to answers without the use of human interaction where possible. According to Twitter Product Manager, Ian Cairns, that’s precisely their goal. “[Customer Support] can enable faster resolutions by helping customers more easily provide information to solve problems before an agent sees the first message, or they can simplify automated services and transactional flows that were difficult in the past,” said Cairns.

Are you looking to increase your customer service on Twitter? If so, give us a call at (469)248-0616.