Which tools do you use and why?
Irena: “We have been working with Coosto for over a year and a half now . At first we did all sorts of things with free tools such as Hootsuite , Tweetdeck , Crowdbooster , Tweetreach , and Topsy . After that you know a bit about what is happening. We wanted to move to a single sign on monitoring tool with workflow management to link webcare to regular customer service. The tool automatically forwards messages from the Facebook inbox and Twitter to our central webcare system. Our company structure is also very similar to ANWB, and they had good experiences with it. It is worth the money: for us the system works well, reliably and conveniently.”
Birgit: “With the feedback button, you often have help within an hour. They can also see from which screen you get stuck, a small but super handy feature. And they often process our questions in a next software version. For example, the response field was too small at first, we wanted to be able to expand it for the extensive answers we give.”
And how does it work if you want to consult internally?
Irena: “Especially in the beginning, a lot of support was needed for the employees. Through Yammer, we set up an external network of which Social Inc. (for strategic advice on the implementation), our webcarers and myself are members. Now the team members help each other and that is perfect, because the knowledge is with the webcarers themselves.” Birgit: “In the beginning, you often have that you don't know how to approach it. We were also very aware that many people see what you say. So we often wanted to check a reaction with colleagues, who then come up with tips or a slightly different approach.”
Irena: “All internal communication between online employees goes through Yammer, all documents are there too. People are stuck on their phones behind their desks, so Yammer is very important to us.”
You indicate that FNV Bondgenoten, as the largest of the FNV unions, is a complex organization.
“Not yet, everyone has their own policy. Other unions are smaller and have very south africa mobile phone number list different members, in other market sectors, so the topics are different there too. That will definitely change when all the unions merge. I think it is a great gain that we have started working together within FNV Bondgenoten across all silos, departments and managers. Social media and webcare have worked as a crowbar in that respect: the organization is more streamlined. It sometimes happens that questions for us come in on the Facebook wall of the Vakcentrale (the umbrella organization). Well, then they mention us in their answer.”
Are there any other successes you have achieved with webcare?
Birgit: “I don’t really expect compliments, because it’s my job to give answers. People still take the time to thank you and give feedback on what happens with your advice. To be honest, our members are more polite than I expected. And people like that it’s a bit more informal online. We’ve become very human! We’ve started communicating much more personally, it’s not appropriate to say ‘you’ to each other on Facebook.”
Do you ever make social media blunders?
“We have a critical audience, people are very critical of you having to spell their name correctly. We pay extra attention to that after something has gone wrong. That really goes wrong. Because it can be so personal, social media communication. But then we simply offer our apologies for that. Apart from that, there have not really been any blunders so far, in our eyes.”