Major retailers in the US are using Twitter this holiday season to engage in instant, one-on-one conversations with their customers about sales, service and technical issues, shopping news, and other topics.
The move represents the growing emergence of Twitter as a medium that can serve a range of previously separate outreach functions - including advertising, customer service, and news. Approximately 59% of online retailers plan to increase their use of Twitter this holiday season, according to eMarketer.
Best Buy, Toys 'R' Us, Staples, Gap, Bloomingdale's and Barney's all posted special deals via their Twitter channels to promote post-Thanksgiving sales both in-store and on their websites.
Black Friday, Cyber Monday Tweets
On Black Friday, Barney’s tweeted, "Fall Sale Starts Today - Up to 40% Off!" and included a link to its online store. Disney president James Fielding used his Twitter channel to promote a one-day sale available to users who became fans of the Disney Facebook page. And Gap Outlet used Twitter to push out a 15% discount on purchases of $75 or more for users who “followed” its channel.
On Cyber Monday, Toys 'R' Us tweeted about a Nintendo Wii promotion and linked to more information on its Facebook page.
Customer Service Tweets
Retailers also are using Twitter to address out-of-store customer product and service issues previously handled by call centers.
A few months ago, Best Buy launched Twelpforce, a Twitter-based customer service group that includes 2,500 participating employees. Prior to Thanksgiving, the group had handled about 25,000 customer questions, the company said.
In one example on Black Friday, a Best Buy shopper in Los Angeles bought a new navigation system in the early morning, but later could not figure out why it wasn’t giving her traffic updates. The shopper sent a message to Best Buy’s Twitter account, and within minutes received two responses from Best Buy employees with information on how to fix her problem, the New York Times reports.
Shopping News Alerts
Shopping news is also a popular topic for retailers on Twitter. On Friday, Mall of America in Bloomington, Minn. used Twitter to inform shoppers that some of its parking lots were full and that customers should park in different locations.
