Communicating via Twitter

Twitter has become a popular way for customers to interact with brands. More and more frequently, customers are asking questions, giving props, and sometimes escalating support situations over Twitter. By adding a Twitter account, your support team can receive and reply to @ mentions and direct messages in real time — all without leaving Kayako.

Many times, Kayako will simply take Twitter activity and use it to create a new conversation. But because conversations with customers often span multiple channels — e.g., email, Messenger, and Twitter — Kayako can also include relevant tweets in ongoing conversations. This provides important context for your agents to see a single view of the customer's history.

In this article, we'll take you through the ins and outs of how Kayako interacts with Twitter, and then show you how to connect and configure your own accounts.

Understanding how Kayako interacts with Twitter

Adding one or more Twitter accounts to your Kayako enables your support team to keep up with and responding to what people are saying about your company on Twitter. You can authorize Kayako to interact with your Twitter account, making it possible to receive and reply to tweets without leaving Kayako.

You can add multiple Twitter accounts, to support customers in different regions or within different brands. If you use your Twitter account to announce company news or updates, you can have Kayako display those tweets on your Help Center. In addition, once you've added an account, you'll have the chance to customize what type of activity you want Kayako to capture. For that, let's look at an example.

Say we're using '@Brewfictus' to provide social support for our totally not-made-up coffee equipment supply company. We can add '@Brewfictus' to Kayako, and then customize the types of activity we want to capture.

First, we'll tell Kayako to capture any @ mentions. That way, anytime a tweet includes '@Brewfictus', Kayako will pull it in. So say Stephen, a shift manager at one of Atmosphere Coffee Company's cafes, sends the following tweet:

Stephen's been a Brewfictus customer for a while now, and his Kayako user account includes his Twitter identity. So when he tweets at us, Kayako automatically pulls it in, and adds it as an update to his open conversation.

NOTE: If Stephen's Twitter account wasn't in the system — or if he didn't have any open conversations – Kayako would simply create a new conversation with the tweet.

We can also tell Kayako to pull in any Direct Messages (DMs) from our Twitter account as well. To make sure we get the most out of this, we're going to follow back all our Brewfictus customers so they can DM us. Alternatively, we could set @Brewfictus to accept DMs from anyone in Twitter's security settings. Kayako will handle incoming DMs the same as incoming tweets, either adding them to open conversations or using them to create new ones.

Finally, we can tell Kayako to pull in any tweets that we 'like' from our Brewfictus account. So let's say Phoebe, the Brewfictus CEO, is scrolling through Twitter on the weekend and spots another cafe owner, struggling to keep up with the brunch-time rush because of a malfunctioning steam wand. The tweet doesn't mention '@Brewfictus' outright, but if Phoebe likes the tweet using the @Brewfictus account, it will still create a new conversation in Kayako. Then, one of the weekend agents can swoop in and rescue the customer from the brunch hordes!

For your own support Twitter account, you can choose to capture any or all of these types of activities, so you don't miss a beat! Keep reading for detailed instructions for adding and configuring Twitter accounts.

Adding a Twitter account

To receive or send tweets in Kayako, you'll need to authorize your Twitter account. You can add as many Twitter accounts as you like — for example, say you have a primary account '@Brewfictus' as well as region specific accounts, like '@BrewfictusUK'.

NOTE: To connect Twitter accounts in Kayako, you will need an administrator account with the 'Manage channels' permission.

To add a Twitter account:

1. Sign in to Kayako and go to the admin area.
2. Under the 'Channels' heading, click the Twitter link.
3. Here, you'll see any Twitter accounts that you've already added. Click the Connect new account button to connect another.
4. You'll be prompted to sign into your Twitter account and authorize Kayako.
   NOTE: Kayako will never post to Twitter without your consent. We require these permissions so that we can deliver the messages you compose to your customers
5. Once you've authorized Kayako for Twitter, you'll be redirected back to the Twitter settings page.

That's it! You'll now be able to send and receive tweets through this Twitter account. From here, you may want to create some Twitter-specific automations, like using a trigger to automatically assigning conversations with Twitter activity to a specific 'Social Support' team or setting a shorter SLA for conversations created from tweets.

Configuring Twitter settings

There's a few different ways Kayako can interact with your connected Twitter account. Let's look at the settings you have available to configure.

NOTE: To configure Twitter settings in Kayako, you will need an administrator account with the 'Manage channels' permission.

To edit the configuration settings for a Twitter account

1. Sign in to Kayako and go to the admin area.
2. From the Twitter settings page, hover over a Twitter account you'd like to edit, and click Edit.
3. From the Brand dropdown, select which brand this account is associated with.
   NOTE: To learn more, check out our article about multi-brand support.
4. Next, under the 'What to capture' heading, you can select what tweets Kayako should capture:
   • Mentions — Enable this option to capture any tweets that @ mention your twitter account. If the person who tweets has an open conversation, Kayako will add the tweet to the conversation timeline.
   • Direct Mentions — Enable this option to capture any direct messages (DMs). Kayako will add the DM to their most recently updated open conversation.
     NOTE: Remember that, by default, Twitter will only allow people you follow to DM you. You can change this in your Twitter security settings.
   • Liked tweets — Enable this option to capture any tweets that your team 'likes' using this Twitter account. Kayako will create a new conversation for each tweet you 'like'.
5. Finally, click Show latest Tweets from this account in the Help Center toggle to display any tweets you send—that aren't replies—on the front page of your Help Center.
6. Click the Save button to update your Twitter account settings.