a.1 Open a Twitter account ( www.twitter.com ) dedicated for CRM with an appropriate generic name. Say, "crm.vishwa"
a.2 Go to the 'Settings' within crm.vishwa twitter account, and activate "Protect My Tweets" box. By doing so, only those twitter accounts that are accepted by crm.vishwa can follow the tweets sent from crm.vishwa.
a.3 Competitors, vendors, etc will NOT be able view the tweets received in crm.vishwa account (when we select the protection feature stated above) unless their request to follow crm.vishwa tweets are accepted. (Thus, the desired privacy of the crm.vishwa details is ensured.)
a.4 Click 'Notices' under 'Settings' and select "Email when someone starts following me" as well as "Email when I receive a new direct message". (Thus,whenever a message is received in crm.vishwa twitter account, an email would be sent to the e-mail address indicated in the "Settings" page.)
b.1 Identify a responsible official within the company who shall operate the crm.vishwa twitter account. His e-mail address may be entered in the 'Settings' page.
c.1 Identify the officials within the organisation (say, COO, Marketing Head, Customer Service Head, …) whom (the management decides) should be intimated whenever a CRM related message is received by the company.
c.2 Ask those officials to send a 'follow' request to crm.vishwa from their respective twitter accounts. (Search for 'crm.vishwa' in the 'Who To Follow' tab and click 'Follow +' button. A request for accepting the 'follow' would be sent to 'crm.vishwa' account.)
c.3 Accept the 'follow' requests of the officials from crm.vishwa twitter account. (Only upon accepting will the followers be able to automatically view the "tweets originating from crm.vishwa" in their respective twitter account.)
c.4 Please note that only the tweets sent by crm.vishwa can be seen by the 'followers'. Tweets that come to crm.vishwa cannot be seen by the followers. For your information.
d.1 Any twitter account holder can send a tweet to crm.vishwa account. One cannot stop it. For your information.
e.11 Whenever a message is received in crm.vishwa twitter account, an email would be sent to the e-mail address indicated in the "Settings" page (since appropriate options were selected in the 'Notices' tab). For information.
e.12 The authorised crm.vishwa user must sign-in the twitter account, and tweet the message to the followers. As of now, the 'retweet' option is not available for direct tweets. So, the tweet to be shared (with the followers)has to be typed verbatim; this is a handicap, till a 'retweet' button is made available for forwarding 'direct messages' (ie. tweets addressed to @crm.visha)
e.13 All officials who are allowed to follow crm.vishwa twitter account will get the tweet in their respective twitter accounts, for taking necessary action.
e.2 The tweets that come directly into crm.twitter account cannot be deleted by anyone. Thus, no CRM entry will get unnoticed. It's a desired control.
f.1 We must ensure that no outsider's "follow" request is ever accepted. Hence,we reiterate the need for a responsible person to operate the crm.vishwa twitter account.
f.2 If, by oversight, an outsider's "follow" request was accepted, we can send a direct message to that twitter account holder to stop following our crm.vishwa. (We must continue sending the 'stop following request' everyday till the outsider inactivates the 'follow' button in his twitter account.)
g.1 Share the crm.vishwa twitter address with all stakeholders (viz. customers, vendors, employees, … whom you would like to follow crm.vishwa tweets) such that they can send the tweets pertaining to CRM to this dedicated twitter account. Well, they have to send a request to 'follow' and crm.vishwa has to accept that request.
g.2 Share a tutorial (text as well as video) for their convenience and early adaption to this initiative, if desired. To send a direct tweet to crm.vishwa, one has to first enter "@crm.vishwa" followed by a space and then the tweet content from their respective twitter account.
z Thus, an organisation can also use Twitter as a support tool to CRM initiative. Subscription to twitter is free.
