Starhub Enters Social Media With Twitter
April 15, 2009 – 5:15 pm | by Daryl TayI suppose this isn’t news, but Starhub (one of the three telcos here in Singapore) has brought its presence to the social media scene in the form of a Twitter account, @StarHubCares.
During the first few weeks, there were a few issues like @StarHubCares replying other Twitter users, asking them to direct message (dm) @StarHubCares directly, but because @StarHubCares wasn’t following them on Twitter in the first place, there was no way for a dm to get through.
Thankfully, with some help from the community, this was quickly sorted out and @StarHubCares quickly followed these people (myself included) back, and got down to replying their issues.
Here are a few questions that I do have about the initiative:
1) Should it be more transparent that the person behind @StarHubCares is not actually someone from Starhub, but their agency? Some online feel yes, I’m slightly on the fence.
2) Is Twitter the best (or even a right) channel for them to be on?
3) @StarHubCares seems to do a good job of listening in and replying to questions/problems, but are there actual accounts from them or from the general public about cases being closed, problems being solved?
4) Do regular Starhub employees know about this service, so that maybe when they close a sale at a retail outlet, they can tell customers about this service in addition to the customer helpline?
What do you think? When should a company be on Twitter? Does it fit Starhub? Should they be doing more with it? Less?
Tags: @starhubcares, agency, direct message, dm, is twitter the best channel, is twitter the right channel, Singapore, social media, starhub, twitter
6 Responses to “Starhub Enters Social Media With Twitter”
By Jonathan Wong on Apr 15, 2009 | Reply
1) I don’t think it matters. Whether StarHub outsource customer relations or keep it in-house, the bottom line is that @StarHubCares represents StarHub, and whatever it does will affect StarHub’s image and reputation.
2) Absolutely not. If the intention is for information dissemination, than yes – perhaps Twitter is the right channel. However, if the intention is for genuine customer feedback and interaction, a much simpler Web 1.0 creation – the forum – would be a better choice IMO. My guess is that beyond customer relations, StarHub also wanted to rub off a bit of the “social media” fairy dust a little too, which is why it elected to go with the Web 2.0 service of the moment – Twitter. Nothing wrong with that, BTW.
3) Again, this begs the question – is Twitter really the best channel to hold detailed discussions like this for particular problems and to see them through from beginning to closure?
4) Anyone want to take an informal survey and visit a few StarHub stores to see if they know about @StarHubCares?
By Benjamin Koe on Apr 15, 2009 | Reply
It’ll always be nicer to have an in-house person as customer support (CS), but then again most call centres are outsourced to India, Philippines, etc. So I think this is fair to have Ian take care of this new channel.
There isn’t a best or right channel. Twitter is another channel just as phone and email are channels for CS. Starhub could use Facebook, Plurk, MySpace, and Friendster too if they wanted.
Overall I think Starhub has done the right thing to spend a little more money and effort on customer service. I personally prefer to call the hotline, but sure Twitter is good too since I’m on it everyday. It also makes them look like they are in touch with the social media.
Another plus point is that now @StarHubCares has close to 200 followers, maybe one day it’ll reach a critical number of Starhub customers and in such time they could use Twitter as an immediate broadcast medium for downtime announcements or even marketing contests.
By Tania Chew on Apr 15, 2009 | Reply
1) I believe in transparency and I like knowing who is behind a moniker, especially when it comes to building real relationships with customers. It’s ok if @StarHubCares is manned by their agency folks, but they shouldn’t be afraid to say so (and to StarHub’s credit, they never tried to hide that fact). On a personal level, I feel that a company has more of a human face if their customer care folks have real names and aren’t just bots.
2) Twitter isn’t necessarily the best place for them to be on and it certainly isn’t the only space to be on but when @StarHubCares was born, I gave them a quiet kudos for at least knowing what was going on in the online game and taking that plunge to actively put themselves out there ahead of their competitors and start making direct contact with their users, getting feedback and fixing problems. It’s not easy to take customer service head on like that for the world to see, but openness and transparency rule…flaws and all.
3) @StarHubCares never followed me back and, funny enough, I did encounter network problems during a certain period that I addressed to @StarHubCares…which they might have picked up on if they were doing active searches for non-followees who were @StarHubCares-ing them.
4) Do regular StarHub employees even know what Twitter is?
By Daryl Tay on Apr 16, 2009 | Reply
Thanks for all the comments!
@Jonathan Wong: Nice pick up on the forum point. A little archaic in terms of usage, but potentially much better for functionality. Things for future initiatives to consider.
@Ben Koe: Great point about the critical mass. We talked about that for an upcoming episode of GennY, and Kris made the exact same point, that it can become a very powerful medium for such messages in the future, once their base is built up
@Tania Chew: No answers for if they know, but it would be weird if someone calls up and is like “ehh I hear you all are on Twitter ah. How can I use it?” and the customer service guy is like “dunno”.