What’s your brand on Twitter, or more broadly, what’s your brand online?
I delight customers (or at least, work to delight them) in my work life online, and I try to do the same thing whenever I encounter someone new or find an idea worth supporting. It doesn’t take very long to offer your support, means a great deal to the other person, and provides a new networking contact (and most importantly, new ideas or possibilities). With that in mind, here are 3 things you can do to support your customers online (even if you’re not selling a product):
Listen and Be Available
When people ask questions, they want to be heard and they want to know that someone’s listening. So be the person who listens, whether it’s listening on a hash tag/subject that you care about, or simply acknowledging to your contacts and customers that you heard their question. You can start by thanking them whenever they offer feedback, and you can always offer a friendly ear and a willingness to help.
Offer Help
Help is a bit of an amorphous term — it might mean something kind of monumental or it might be a throwaway gesture to you, and it might mean the world to your customer or contact. Offer what you can, and be genuine. You can follow the simple rule of “tell ’em what you’re gonna tell em; tell ’em; tell’em what you told ’em” and improve the perception of your company (or of the way that you respond personally) simply by following through. Adding value on top of simply following through and you become the embodiment of great customer service.
If you don’t know, say so.
But if you don’t know, telling the customer that you don’t know isn’t going to kill you. (Or even make them feel bad, usually.) You can take great strides toward improving your relationship with the customer by telling them you don’t know how to solve their question or problem, and by telling them (and demonstrating with your actions) what you’re going to do next to find out.
What are some of your 3 things to help customers?
Information Maven 
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