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Heads up: TransLink’s Twitter pilot project for November 2010

Heads up: TransLink’s Twitter pilot project for November 2010

Update, February 11, 2011: Yay: our Twitter pilot has been permanently extended!

Update, February 1, 2011: The Twitter pilot has been extended to the end of February 2011! Things are looking positive for the indefinite extension of the pilot—stay tuned for more!

Jan 10, 2011 update. Just wanted to say the pilot is definitely continuing to the end of January—we continue to seek budget approval for keeping the program going indefinitely! Here’s the post about that.

Dec 8, 2010 note: OK, here’s the in-depth results post about the pilot!

Dec 3, 2010 note: Owing to great results, we have decided to extend the Twitter pilot for the month of December! The hope is that we will continue the pilot indefinitely, but funding approval is still ongoing. I’ll have a more in-depth post on the results up in the next few days—stay tuned!

If you don’t know about it yet, TransLink offers a popular Twitter account (www.twitter.com/translink) where you can get breaking news and key service updates.

And starting today—November 1, 2010—the TransLink Twitter account will be getting a boost in staffing and content, owing to a pilot project with our Customer Information staff.

For the month of November, the Customer Information team at our call centre will help provide updates to the TransLink Twitter feed, supplying the latest transit service news and info as it happens.

A member of the team will update the account from 6:30 a.m. to 11:30 pm., and will also take a crack at answering customer questions if possible. As well, they will be updating the yellow alerts strip on the TransLink mobile site, m.translink.ca.

Why are we doing this?

Well, to be honest, the chief goal is to bring better service to our customers! In the past, the TransLink Twitter account has been one place where customers have been very happy with receiving service notifications—especially during times like the Olympics, or during service outages across the system. We want to build on that success.

The month-long pilot also helps us get an idea of how Twitter and similar services might integrate into our current customer service processes. It also helps more of our staff venture into the world of social media, which is fast becoming a vast new channel for customer service.

And don’t worry, amid all this we haven’t forgotten our other services—Customer Information is still updating alerts on the website, as well as the customized alerts that you can receive via e-mail or SMS.

Your feedback will help

If you follow the TransLink Twitter account, please keep an eye on how things are going this November and let us know what you think. As this is a pilot, we’d love to know what is working for you and what isn’t, so we can improve! I’ll make sure to post another note before the end of November, to remind you to let us know what you think of the pilot.

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