Mengniu becomes the first company to provide customer service via WeChat

Mengniu Dairy Company officially launched the first ever WeChat customer service platform on May 21.

All that is required is to follow the company on their WeChat public profile, a service not dissimilar to Facebook's pages, which is designed to better allow celebrities, governmental bodies, media groups and companies to engage directly with billions of consumers in order to increase brand awareness.

Up until now, companies such as China Eastern have used WeChat public profiles to provide automated customer service, such as relaying flight information. Thanks to its fully customisable layout design, more companies are increasingly adapting the public profile to suit their own needs. Southern Television Guangdong (TVS) have tailored their WeChat profile to provide timely TV, news and weather updates, even offering the occasional translation service.

Tencent's WeChat has previously come under fire for allowing security forces to spy on its users as well as rendering SMS messaging in China obsolete. But this customer-centric innovation is a welcome development, and is poised to reach out to over 400 million users in China, as well as a potential 50 million users overseas.

The company pledged on Weibo to assign their staff to the most pressing questions.

"We will provide honest answers to your consumer enquiries, just scan the QR code to follow us on WeChat or log onto Imilk's website. See you there!"

So next time the melamine in your milk causes your baby's kidneys to fail, at least you'll be able to complain in a 21st century manner.

By Lisa Wang // Image credit: Cory M. Grenier