Comwerks Interactive

Social Government Strategies (Part I): Using Blogs to Improve Customer Service

Posted by Gul Khan in Measurement, Social media on October 17th, 2008

Recently we’ve been conducting some research that revolves around how the government can use new media and social media tools to help make their online offerings more meaningful to the people.

Address the Issues

We asked Singaporeans how the government could better serve the people from the online perspective and here is a summary of what they said:

1.    First, please get the basics right!
2.    The website it not relevant to me.
3.    I want to know more about you and the people behind the organization
4.    I want to connect with more people like me.
5.    I want to get involved and play a part.

“How to” Blogs

From the above, we can see that there definitely is scope for social and new media tools to solve all of the above and we have come up with a range of different strategies. And if you look at points (4) and (5) above, we can see that there are real communities connected to each government agency and their websites can play a key role in fostering and engaging in a conversations with these communities.

For now, I would like to explore a very simple and very workable strategy and that is to use blogs to improve service delivery and usage of online government services. This can solve points (1), (2) and in a limited way, (3). I guess you can call them “how to” blogs.

Gov Gab: The U.S. Government Blog

A great example of something along these lines would be Gov Gab blog. Here’s an excerpt of what they are about:

“In our daily jobs, we encounter a staggering amount of U.S. government information and services that can benefit your life. From saving money and visiting National Parks to finding out about government auctions and the latest recalls, we want to bring these resources to you in a new way—through our blog.”
Source: http://blog.usa.gov/roller/govgab/page/bios

As far as I understand it (please correct me if I am wrong), their blog helps people around the government maze to help deal with their day-to-day issues. The example below gives tips about how to “bank safely” during these troubled times:
•    It talks about and links to the 2008 Stabilization Act
•    It advises people on what to do when a bank fails (linking to the FDIC website)
•    It provides tips on how to choose a new bank (linking to the consumeraction.gov website)

Content Strategy – Anything That Is Current!

There’s one constant that almost every government website needs to be able to cope with: There is always something new to handle! New issues, requests, problem, question, can come up because of economic changes, policy updates, seasonal factors (e.g. tax filing month), things happening in another part of the world, changes in tastes, technology, health scares (e.g. SARs)…you name it.

So there is great scope for new content (aka new and relevant blog posts). If you belong to a government agency, just check out the current hot items in your:
•    Customer support logs
•    Website keyword searches
•    Customer feedback data, surveys etc

For example, from our own continuous learning programs, we’re noticing a LOT of questions coming in about the “enhanced baby bonus”. Information about this topic alone can span different government agency websites. As long as there is someone in the government keeping their finger on the pulse, a typical blog post about the baby bonus can be quickly created and it can link to the different websites that deal with this same issue but in a different way.

I think it’s an approach worth exploring for the Singapore government.

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