The Twitter bug that has been biting seemingly everyone over the past 3 months has also penetrated a number of groups here at eBay Inc. The eBay Developer Program has been on Twitter since last Summer (@eBayDevProgram) as have I (@ebayinkblog). But we’ve seen some recent additions too, both internationally (@eBayUK and @eBayDE) and from different members of the eBay Inc. portfolio (@KijijiUS, @Stub_Hub and @eBayMotors).

As some of you know, we’ve been enhancing and improving the way in which Twitter feeds (and other social media channels for that matter) are managed in order to maintain a level of consistency and, more importantly, to maximize what each group is getting out of their different conversations. For example, I’m working with folks internally on expanding our existing employee social media and blogging guidelines to make sure the new methods of communication are accounted for (and that each group and region of the company is represented through these tools of communication). I’ll save all this for another post though. For now, I wanted to share the latest addition to the list of official eBay Twitter feeds.

Ask eBay Motors
So far we’ve seen eBay utilize Twitter for a number of industry firsts including live reporting of earnings’ calls, and analyst presentations / conferences but I think what the eBay Motors‘ team launched this past Friday is something that is only new to our company: a dedicated Twitter feed to handle customer questions. That’s right, @askebaymotors has the following text for a bio: “eBay Motors Customer Service. Tweet me and we’ll help you out!”

Lots of household brand names such as Comcast (@comcastcares), Southwest Airlines (@SouthwestAir) and JetBlue (@JetBlue) proactively respond to customer questions on Twitter so admittedly this is nothing groundbreaking in the grand scheme of things - but it doesn’t make it any less cool. I’ll be really interested in a) how the eBay Motors team handles this and maintains consistency and b) if successful, how other eBay business units utilize Twitter for Customer Service (CS).

Obviously, none of the companies listed above - eBay included - will be relying on Twitter solely for CS needs. Instead, it represents an additional service that can only add to the existing CS in place. However, there is a part of me that also wonders what Twitter has up its sleeve for businesses currently using their service for free to handle CS issues that would normally involve CMS tools, salaries and dedicated money and resources. TweetBiz Service coming soon maybe?

For now, I’ll congratulate Derek Cohen, Danny Chang and the whole eBay Motors team for taking the initiative and applying technology to help customers. Fire up!

Cheers,
RBH

eBay Motors Launches Customer Service Twitter account