Reasons Why You Need to Use Social Media

When most marketers and business owners think about the advantages of social media for their business, they think about attracting new customers to the business. Smart business owners and marketers focus on relationship building, either through regular content marketing or by having conversations with customers who are already familiar with the brand. But social media has a much broader potential for business development and customer retention.

 When today’s customers try to get in touch with a customer service representative, they encounter various challenges:

• Finding a phone number to call 
• Submitting a contact form
• Sending an email
• Seeking out a service representative

 Using social media as a customer service portal can compensate for many of these disadvantages. This is the reason why many companies today are actively using this platform to address their customers’ needs.

BSNL, one of India's largest PSU telecom, is an organisation that has boarded this platform to service its huge customer base. Its success can be seen from the good number of positive tweets received from its customers

How can Social Media impact your company?

Social media has an organic feel to it, or an authenticity that other conventional channels do not have. It feels personal and unbiased, not corporate and controlled (even if it is). Companies should harness that power of the various social media channels and use it to develop better relationships with customers. Social media channels also provide more opportunities to make customers feel good.

Thus, a new customer service opportunity has emerged with the adoption of social media by customers enabling companies to effectively listen to and track conversations about their brands. Interestingly, these efforts aren’t necessarily confined to traditional contact center agents working in customer service departments.

BSNL, a state-owned telecom player, has been a quick learner when it comes to adopting social media. This can be seen from the good number of positive tweets by their customers.

E-Governance and Social Media

The Internet has truly transformed the world and its connectivity, breaking down barriers across the world.

The advent of information and communications technology and the growing broadband penetration, in urban as well as rural areas, has helped in connecting the masses and laying down the foundation of e-governance.

The “Open Government” initiative, by the Government of India, focuses on bringing “Transparency” in various processes and systems. This includes sharing information with the public, improving the quality of government services and enabling greater citizen engagement.

Governments, like businesses, have quickly realised that it is essential to use communication tools that citizens and stakeholders themselves use. To meet these objectives, governments are increasingly using publicly available social media platforms such as Facebook, Twitter and YouTube. 

Now, participation of citizens in raising grievances online is increasing, and their redressal by the government and its ministries is becoming more visible. A perfect example of this is the successful use of Twitter by Minister of Communication, Sh. Manoj Sinha, in timely redressal of complaints by customers of various telecom operators.

This new way of engaging with citizens to address their issues and problems has been much appreciated and lauded as seen by the numerous positive comments

Customer Service through Social Media: Why it matters?

These days it is impossible to avoid social media. It can be a real boon to brands that know how exactly to harness its potential as a platform to provide customer services.

The upside of this new rise in social consumer is that creating brand ambassadors and loyal fans can can have a powerful positive impact on company's image.

BSNL has created quite a stir by using twitter to address customer grievances.

Time is absolutely of the essence when it comes to responding to complaints and other issues on social media. BSNL has a standard response time of less then 1 hour for complaints raised by its customers.

This quick response and faster resolution of complaints has garnered lot of positive support from its customer base as seen by the good number of positive comments.

An opportunity not to be missed

The rapidly evolving shift in how we communicate and connect with each other is redefining the way companies interact with customers. Social customer service is rapidly becoming a new critical channel driving satisfaction and loyalty.

Organisations are at different stages when it comes to using social care programmes to interact with customers. Some are at a listening stage via social media which is typically known as ' Voice of Customer' and gathers information to improve products and services.

Others are regularly engaging with customers to realise positive outcomes for the organisation.

BSNL is one such organisation which has adopted social media to effectively listen to customer grievances and provide quick solutions.

A peek at its twitter handle @BSNLCorporate gives a good picture of how BSNL is successfully using this platform for positive engagement with customers.

BSNL 339 Offer: A step ahead

State-run Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited (BSNL) has a launched a plan that will provide 2 GB data per day for Rs. 339 per month.

Recently, Reliance announced its new Jio Prime membership and plans to Jio subscribers. This has obviously forced other operators like Airtel, Vodafone, Idea and BSNL to match them to stay in competition.

To cope up with Jio’s offer, BSNL has taken proactive steps to offer something more attractive. It has introduced an aggressive offer, which would stop its customers switching to Jio and will also shore up new customers.

While Jio’s 303 offers only 1 GB data per day, BSNL offers the consumer 2 GB data per day which is a huge benefit to data consumers.

But while Jio offers unlimited calling, BSNL offers 25 minutes free calling per day. After consumption of 25 minutes, a levy of 25 paise per minute will be levied.

BSNL signs MoU with Nokia on 5G Tech

The Mobile World Congress is currently underway in Barcelona and just like every year the tech on display is mesmerizing. From IoT applications to immersive digital content, MWC has come to be known as the go-to conclave for understanding forthcoming technological revolutions.

Whilst every Telecom operator and OEM Company worth their salt attends the MWC, Indian organizations too have made their presence felt at the exhibition.

State run BSNL represented by its CMD Mr. Anupam Shrivastava and a delegation of the PSU announced a MoU to be signed with Nokia for knowledge sharing on 5G technologies.

5G technology has the capability to deliver high speed and low latency network. The network makes it possible to support multiple IoT technology such as Virtual Reality VR, or Augmented Reality AR, automated homes, remote healthcare among others. BSNL plans to utilize Nokia’s expertise for network evolution to 5G.

Nokia’s 5G ready radio access and Airframe data center platform will ensure transition of BSNL network to 5G. BSNL will also use Nokia’s knowledge in Software Define Networking, Mobile Edge Computing and Cloud to help the PSU turnaround its technology offerings both to retail and enterprise customers.

Mr. Sanjay Malik, Head for Nokia India was quoted as saying that this partnership with BSNL to develop 5G ecosystem in line with the Indian Governments thrust to boost the digital infrastructure to enhance economic growth of the country.

Mr. Shrivastava was quoted as saying that the partnerships would help BSNL to prepare itself for the next generation of communications network. He also mentioned that BSNL was use the technology in the smart city projects it is currently working on for the Government.

It seems the PSU has taken in its stride to forge such kind of partnerships in the recent past that would it give it an edge over competitors in the hyperactive telecom sector.