The ambition is to eventually arrive at phase four ‘co-creation, the municipality works together’ via phase three – ‘the municipality converses’. But for the time being that is a few bridges too far, Kok indicated. “Many municipalities do not yet interact on social media, but mainly use it as the old, familiar way of sending. Municipalities are getting better at responding. About 40 percent of municipalities send a response within two hours, but a conversation is often still scary.”
Furthermore, the researchers conclude that large municipalities are ahead of medium-sized and small municipalities. oman phone number library This often has to do with capacity and budget, indispensable preconditions when you want to professionalize as a municipality. The biggest steps are made in the area of content creation and customer contact.
Using WhatsApp
Also, a social media strategy in municipalities is often based on channels and much less on integration with services. Speaking of services: “Using WhatsApp as a webcare channel could be a nice next step,” suggests Kok. Incidentally, a few municipalities are already experimenting with this, including Terneuzen, Delft and Leeuwarden.
WhatsApp_municipalities2
Learning from companies
In short, there is plenty of work to be done for municipalities. And what can they learn from companies? Rogier Schmit, director of digital services at T-Mobile, offered his audience some refreshing insights in the afternoon. Schmit sees webcare not only as a service to customers, but as an instrument to change the organization. “We use webcare to transform our company. Customer contact is the highest achievable for a company, but in practice you often see that young people enter the customer contact department and then – as they develop – move on and become increasingly distant from customer contact.”
Everyone does webcare for one day
The telecom company has come up with something for that. Schmit: “New employees have to do webcare with us for one day, whether you are a process manager or a project developer. Obsessively sharing what you do with customer contact is also essential. You have to be able to tell at a avoid repetition and clichés! party how you deal with customer questions. Doing webcare for one day enriches your career.”
Nice idea, but don’t municipalities have a certain monopoly position? After all, T-mobile customers can south africa numbers easily switch to another provider, but switching to another municipality is a lot more difficult. “As a result, civil servants do not always feel the urgency of customer contact,” someone in the audience noted. They should, Schmit replied. After all, the resident does not compare the service provision between different municipalities, but sets the service provision of the municipality against that of other companies with which he has contact. “If municipalities do not go along with that, you can put a few extra security guards at the counter within four years.” The conversation .
