Dive Brief:

• Twitter announced new features that will help users operate customer service functions better via the social network this week at its Flight developer conference. 
• Businesses can now use the Fabric developer platform to link customers’ phone numbers and Twitter information to their accounts with the businesses to reveal service history. 
• “Single-tweet resolutions” will allow companies’ CSRs to answer customer questions directly via Twitter, informed by customer histories. 

Dive Insight:

Twitter is beefing up its role as a customer service tool with new capabilities announced at its Flight developer conference in San Francisco this week. The platform is working with Fabric and Gnip to sync customer information on behalf of brands to help track interactions and respond to customer inquiries.

The platform’s one-to-one nature has already helped make it the leading social outlet for customer service. But of the 21 million questions consumers have asked brands on Twitter so far this year, only about 30% have been answered, SocialBakers says.

Using Twitter to resolve issues is more cost-effective than a toll-free number, the company says, estimating its cost at about one-sixth of other channels. And by enabling more effective customer service, Twitter’s advertising products are also likely to benefit from the presence of more consumer eyeballs.