Stap isi

21 June 2009

Coal face gang

Has anyone considered using customer services staff to update the website? They speak to people all the time, know the information people ask for, know how to answer questions. They are a valuable communications tool with a good “general” knowledge of the organisation.

Gecko84, local government web editor, in his blog post CMS control, who does what – a rant inspired by Sarah

I like the idea. Customer service staff – from the front counter to the library’s circulation desk – should be part of a council’s web team.

They’re accomplished referrers, have lots of experience dealing with sensitive items and difficult customers and are aware of the issues that arise when representing council in a public space, so they’re a good fit for social media channels.

When you’re working on an information architecture or considering keywords for search engine optimisation, customer service staff have particular value. They know how constituents ask for information – what words they use, how they frame the question – and what information is in demand. By contrast, senior staff advantage what they think people should be asking. And some are lapsed English speakers, hopelessly lost to organisational jargon.

Finally, if your web services are not satisfying customer requests, customer service staff are the canary in the coalmine.

The second part to this post is about crowdsourcing in government.

We generally take this to mean offering constituents an opportunity to innovate solutions or frameworks. But over the last year – as social media has matured and mainstreamed – more and more council employees are using these tools to discuss issues in their workplace.

It may be born of frustration but the motivation for these blogs or Twitter streams is usually positive – to affect change.

This is incredibly valuable for managers – if they choose to listen!

— b3rn   management, user generated content, web teams   Jun 21, 10:16 AM   #

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