The Christchurch Earthquake

Like many others around the country, we at Telnet have been watching in horrified silence at the devastation caused by the Christchurch earthquake.

The images of collapsed buildings and the loss of lives is surreal and some of us have already heard stories of people calling in amid the devastation. There are stories of loss and stories of survival.

There is an old adage that no news is good news and for those of us still waiting to hear news of family or friends in Christchurch, it provides little comfort, especially as the death toll continues to rise.

We can only begin to imagine how people are suffering in the city. And our hearts go out to those who have lost family members or friends.

The only thing we can say to agents here at Telnet is remain positive. It is a difficult situation and we will be hearing from people in the coming weeks still struggling to deal with loss. The best advice we can offer for those talking to customers affected by this is to be understanding of their situation.

Getting on the Social Media Bandwagon

Is this the future for customer service?

Ask a dozen friends and a large number of them will say they have a Facebook page. Or Bebo. Or they will be following someone on Twitter.

With more than 500 million active users, Facebook has grown since it was founded in February 2004.

And here's some more interesting facts on Facebook. The average user is connected to 80 community pages, groups and events and more than 30 billion pieces of content like web links, news stories, blogs, notes and photo albums are shared each month.

Compare that to Twitter, which as of late last year had 175 million registered users, and 95 million tweets are written per day.

Given these numbers it's unsurprising that companies have quickly jumped on the bandwagon, from the media to electronics, and retailers to service companies. It seems almost every company that has a website also has a 'follow us on Twitter' or Facebook.

According to one company, it's an opportunity for them to have a direct dialogue with their customers. And it creates an opportunity for contact centres.

Almost every agent at Telnet has access to the Internet and has at least a basic knowledge of what Facebook is about. Others have Twitter accounts or contribute in some way to online forums.

Telnet’s clients and many other organisations are giving social media a prominent place in communication and marketing strategies.

According to the editor of Customer Contact Magazine, Erik Bouwer in the following article
Social Media and Customer Contact organisations are recognising the value of social media in
allowing them to create a presence at places where their customers are.

"Social media can provide companies with a better insight of what is going on in the heads of their customers."

Many of the clients that use Telnet's services already use social media in one form or another.

Our own Telnet blog is potentially a great tool to keep our clients and agents up to date with what is happening in the company and with contact centres around the world.

It's definitely food for thought.



* For more on social media and contact centres, see Top 5 Takeaways From the Multi Channel Contact Centre Webinar