The back-and-forth between brand reps who manage Twitter accounts and people who try to communicate with those brands might become a little less complicated. It seems no longer will verified Twitter accounts be required to follow back the Twitter users who want to send direct messages.
The Next Web is reporting that Twitter is easing up on the follow requirement so that users with a verified account won’t have to follow a user who wants to message them, ask for a direct message and later unfollow them after the communication has ended.
This makes a lot of sense to us. Consumers increasingly turn to Twitter to communicate with brand reps for assistance — for instance, trying to rebook a flight after a snowstorm. But the process of @messaging, following, requesting a DM and later unfollowing is unnecessarily convoluted for accounts that are designed to handle customer service issues.
Twitter hasn’t announced whether this option will be rolling out across the board, but it appears to have gone into affect for Tata DOCOMO, an Indian mobile operator. The company tweeted,”Now to DM us all you need to do is follow @tatadocomo. No need for us to follow you first. Tested and its working.”