How to transform your social media response from:“Oh no! They’re talking to us! Help!”To:“Hi, how can we help?”

Mark BiddleDigital and Customer Communications ManagerCatalyst

Our social media engagement is crucial

•Our social channels are key in terms of reflecting how we engage with our customers

•Content is worthless if we don’t look like a organisation who listens and responds, and actually cares

About Catalyst Provide 21,000 homes in

London and South East Target of 80% of our customer

contact digital within 3 years Digital strategy in place to help

deliver this.

Our main social media channels Two Twitter accounts

@Catalysthousing @ContactCatalyst

Facebook: CatalystHousing

Review of social media channels

Reading Room provided an assessment of our social media channels as part of research phase for digital strategy

Findings showed that our customers were trying to use these channels to report problems or queries, but with little success.

#fail• A few years ago... Lack of clear guidelines and process

#fail (cont.)•After 3 months we finally got there...

How we improved•Workshops with comms/ customer services to discuss issues and expectations•Training session on responding to queries•Roles and responsibilities defined:• Comms: proactive messages• Customer services: respond to complaints•Monthly catch-ups between comms /customer services to discuss issues and build team•Visited L and Q to share experience and best practice

How we improved (cont)•Defined processes:• Respond within 2 hours•Use name in response to make more

personal• Log-in message each day• Try to deal with issues openly,

depending on data/ confidentiality• Be friendly, helpful.

How to decide when to respond

Our progress...

Next steps•Finalising social media policy•Lifting of restrictions on social media so all can access.•Building awareness and engagement across the organisation•Support from Leadership Team to deliver this