photo by http://www.flickr.com/photos/sansbury/

Listen, and Send Love In 140.

It’s hard to say what you mean in 140 characters. (Even fewer, if you count the spaces you should be leaving for other people to weigh in and add their thoughts). And it’s harder when the person on the other end of the line only has a similar number of characters to spare. The easiest way to solve that problem is with love.

Love, you say? How does that work when, as a community manager or in a corporate communications function, you encounter all kinds of customers (some who are yours and some who only say they’re yours) on a public forum like Twitter — and they’re willing to say (almost) anything to get your attention? It’s easy.

Consider these fundamental human motivations and you’ll be able to deal with almost any customer on Twitter (yep, even those drinking “haterade”).

Everyone Wants To Be Heard.

Acknowledging your followers is a great way to start any conversation, even when it didn’t start so well. For the fan, this could be a simple “Thanks!” added before reposting their handle and their comment, or a “Sorry we missed the mark” to answer a negative tweet. The core reason that people post on twitter is to connect with other people, and the more that you can prove you’re a person – and not a ‘bot – you’ll be closer to winning them over. Bonus: if a conversation gets heated, you can always let the customer know that you want to hear more than what they can say in 140 character, and offer a phone number or an email where they can reach you.

It’s Cool To See Your Name in Lights.

A corollary to the idea that people want to be heard and noticed is that they love to see their names mentioned. A great way to do this is to use a service (I use Gist) to help me know when there’s a relevant story by or about one of my key VIP customers – and then I make sure to quote that  story in my Twitter feed. It’s good for me – it helps me to know what’s going on in my community – and it’s good for the community because it helps people be noticed and for them to be recognized.

You’re Going to Get it Wrong. So Fail Faster.

When you tweet 5-10 (or even more) times a day, you’re going to get some of them wrong. If the persona you present on Twitter is accommodating and friendly, your community will stick by you even if you say some silly things. (A cautionary note here: if you don’t like the idea of something stupid you said being repeated to the whole world, don’t say it. You need only Google a list of “social media mistakes” to see all of the things you shouldn’t be doing – and those are in the 2% that matter)

A few other things will help you when you deal with customers on Twitter. First, write some content ahead of time (if you use a Mac, TextExpander is brilliant for this; if you use a PC, try ActiveWords); you can then automate your most frequently-typed replies so that you don’t get them wrong. Second, be generous. If you always offer to help, it will always turn out well (well, almost always). But it’s worth it to try because most of the time it’s a good thing for the world. And finally, read and follow some of the great practitioners of #cmgrchat – you’ll get some great ideas.

Greg Meyer is the Customer Experience Manager and listening post for Gist.  His past experience includes Expedia, where he led the Agent Tools Team in Global Customer Operations supporting a world-wide Customer Service and Sales team.  Prior to Expedia, Greg built and delivered e-learning content and applications for Service and Sales Representatives at T-Mobile USA. He is a startup veteran of several early stage companies including Netegrity (now part of CA), eRoom (now part of EMC), and Allaire (now part of Adobe). Find Greg on Twitter at @gregatgist or @grmeyer