Twitter Adds New DM Tools for Brands

Complaining about a customer service issue on Twitter? In the future, you may get a direct message from a robot representing the brand you're trying to reach.

Twitter on Tuesday introduced quick replies and welcome messages, two new Direct Messaging tools designed to "create better conversational experiences between businesses and people," Customer Service Product Manager Ian Cairns wrote in a blog post. Twitter says these features can help businesses reduce customer service wait times and educate people on the best ways to interact with them.

Brands and organizations like Evernote, Airbnb, Spotify, Norton, Tesco, Transport for London, The Weather Network, Air Tailor, and the always forward-thinking Pizza Hut are already on board. Pizza Hut, for instance, is launching a new social ordering platform that makes it easy for people to buy a pie on Twitter.

"We are constantly pursuing ways to simplify our ordering experience," Pizza Hut Global Chief Digital Officer Baron Concors said in a statement. "This platform allows our consumers to quickly order or get information within Twitter where they are already spending a great deal of their time."

With welcome messages, businesses can "greet people and set expectations as they enter a Direct Message conversation," Twitter's Cairns explained. The customer doesn't even have to send the first message. Businesses can create multiple welcome messages and link to a specific greeting from Tweets, websites, or apps.

Quick replies, meanwhile, let businesses prompt people how to best reply to a Direct Message — whether it's choosing from a list of options or entering specific text.

Together, these features "enable faster resolutions by helping customers more easily provide information to solve problems before an agent sees the first message, or they can simplify automated services and transactional flows that were difficult in the past," Cairns wrote.

This article originally appeared on PCMag.com.