What Does Twitter “Open DM” Mean For Businesses?

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Understanding that a majority of Twitter users are business centric, the micro-blogging site is going full steam to establish itself as a business friendly social platform.

Its one-month-old Promoted Tweets, as we have previously discussed, has received praises from early adopters.

Now, Twitter is set to roll out yet another business feature, named Business Center. According to our understanding from Mashable’s report, Twitter’s Business Center would provide businesses with the following benefits:

(1) The ability to accept Twittter direct messages (DM), even from people they don’t follow. We’re naming it “Open DM” for the ease of this post.

(2) Customize the contents of your business profile page

(3) Add a verified account badge to your profile for credibility and authenticity

(4) Select extra preferences to help business better reach your customers

(5) Add contributors so multiple people can easily tweet from the business account

Open DM

The feature that got us pretty excited is the ability for businesses to receive DM from anyone.

Putting ourselves in the shoes of an unhappy customer, we are more likely to send a DM rather than simply splashing negative buzz through the typical @ manner. Businesses, on the other hand, can solve problems or misunderstandings privately, without putting its reputation on the line. With less tweets on customer service related issues also leads to a less cluttered Twitter business profile page. Tweets, too, can also be more focused on building brand engagement or promotional activities.

At this juncture, many may think there is little difference between a DM and an email. However, it is the social element that brands on Twitter are associated with that makes customer service more personalized. From a customer’s point of view, it is so much simpler to send a DM than an email, especially when convenience is key in providing great customer service experience. Customers are also able to monitor how busy a business is through its public tweets, which forces businesses to address DM quickly.

Lastly, because a DM has a 140 characters restriction, it forces customers to be more straightforward in informing the root of the problem. Compare Twitter to a telephone customer service where unhappy customers can hold on to the phone for hours with their complains, Twitter’s open DM has certainly made customer service easier for both parties.