Plenty of businesses use Twitter direct messages to have a private conversation with their customers, meaning that any complaints can be dealt with without the public seeing a fall-out. The problem has always been that there was a character limit for each message, but this has now changed.
While Twitter is largely a public experience, Direct Messages let you have private conversations about the memes, news, movements, and events that unfold on Twitter. Each of the hundreds of millions of Tweets sent across Twitter every day is an opportunity for you to spark a conversation about what’s happening in your world. That’s why we’ve made a number of changes to Direct Messages over the last few months. Today’s change is another big step towards making the private side of Twitter even more powerful and fun. (Twitter Blog)