Why Auto-Response Tweets Are The Devil and You Should Cease Using Them Immediately

Sorry for that long headline, but I had to get the point across on this one. 

Automatic tweets. Are. The. WORST. 

And not only because they are annoying, they are a primary hallmark of a company who doesn't seem to want to invest the time in communicating with their customers. Case in point—Bank of America. 

In a snafu that can be described only as "terrible," the BofA twitter account responds to every tweet it gets by offering general, robot-like answers. Because it's a robot. From Gizmodo:

It's a hilariously epic mistake by the official BofA Help Twitter account. When Twitter user @darthmarkh tweeted about how he was chased away by cops after drawing chalk in front of a New York City Bank of America that was pointing out how BofA was taking away people's homes, the BofA Help Twitter account decided to jump in and asked @darthmarkh if he needed help with his account... completely ignoring the fact that @darthmarkh was eviscerating Bank of America right in front of its face.

It gets worse for BofA though. When other people jumped into @darthmarkh's replies, they all get mentioned by the same BofA Help Twitter account with the same generic answers. It's completely embarrassing because NO ONE is actually asking for help, they're all just destroying Bank of America (with the ammo Bank of America is providing no less).

This should be a wake up call. If you're using auto-responders or auto-DM's, now is the time to quit. I don't think anyone has gotten an automated message from a company and thought to themselves, "Wow, this company cares enough about me to get a robot to respond to my query. I feel loved!"  

Using a real-live human to respond to the concerns of your members will always be the best policy. How does your credit union respond to queries on Twitter? Let us know in the comment section below!

DeAndre

DeAndre Upshaw is a former Young & Free Texas Spokester. He's a marketing professional living in Dallas and a Beyonce enthusiast. DeAndre is the host and executive producer of The State of Awesome. Follow him on Twitter and check out his personal website.