As we transition into autumn, it’s easy for us in customer service to lose the steam, energy, and focus we coveted during the rejuvenating days of summer. This is certainly not ideal given that the late fall and early winter months are some the busiest for call centers and contact centers in many the vertical: Black Friday, Super Saturday, and most of the days book-ending December 25th see a dramatic upsurge in customer support requests, which accompanies a similarly dramatic upsurge in shopping on these days.
Customers also use social media as a preferred communications channel at this high-octane time, a public, digital soapbox upon which to shout out about frustrating customer service experiences (anything from being put on hold to never reaching a customer service agent). But while social media can reflect the negative, it can alternatively offer positive viewpoints and inspiring wisdom, often in 280 characters or less. Specifically, Twitter and LinkedIn have sprinkled throughout its many vestiges a series of short, sweet, thought-provoking tidbits from insightful customer service professionals that can dig you out of the winter doldrums, and catapult your customer support strategies into action. If you want to be inspired, invigorated, and ready for anything, read on and soak in the quick’n’dirty advice from CS and CX professionals and enthusiasts.
What a strange place Twitter is in. Consider the incredible influence it holds in the daily news cycle. Newscasts and white house press briefings talk about “tweets” with a seriousness that makes it easy to forget that no one outside the early-adopter circles had even heard that word before 2008. Or consider how iOS treats “tweeting” as a system-level communication option, on par with email and text messaging.
Right now, the only news story you’ll see about Twitter is speculation who will acquire the $16B company. (Latest rumor: it’s 
The burning questions for the customer service industry today are which channels of communication are currently most relevant, and which will be most relevant down the road. In recent months, the discussion has centered around Facebook Messenger and other messaging channels.Many people are debating whether any of these platforms (Messager, Snapchat, Kik, Line, etc) can “win” the B2C communication platform war. (See 
According to 
Customers increasingly prefer chat over other communication channels, but chat suffers from an 
One of the amazing things about Twitter is the unexpected, and unplanned, behaviors that have developed around it. Hashtags, for example, were a 
