DUBAI Early this July, Briton Robert Stokes had applied for a deferment of his personal loan EMI, his bank had been promoting as a complimentary ‘Ramadan offer’. The month went by but the deferment did not happen. He followed that up with seven calls and two branch office visits but the deferment, promised to him ‘free of cost’, however failed to materialise even the month after.
Out of despair at being made a ‘pushover’ for several weeks, he finally went to the bank’s Facebook page one Sunday morning venting his frustration loud and clear for the forum’s 200,000 plus members to see. Soon, within an hour, he got a call from the bank’s online team, assuring him of a prompt solution and in a week’s time he received an SMS confirming his deferment for the month of September, free of charge of course.
“That’s social media for you. I hadn’t realized I hit where it hurts most and they made some real effort to act on my request. It worked like magic,” said the tech expert from Yorkshire who has since decided to get the social media’s help every time from now on, if he has to, for communicating as a disgruntled customer.
Instant result
Ditto for Egyptian finance executive Mahmoud Hosny, 43, who says he got instant results the moment he went online. “I had an insurance claim and was not getting any response from my car dealer despite dozens of phone calls and emails. They called me thrice within minutes of my FB post on their wall and resolved the issue that had been pending for over five months,” said the long-time Dubai resident from Luxor.
Stokes and Hosny are not alone as more and more UAE residents are beginning to express their feelings - genuine frustration or true appreciation - on various social media platforms in a country where it’s said the level of customer care is still of a questionable standard.
“Businesses still don’t take their customers very seriously here and they need to be told this, time and again. Companies are more scared today to receive negative feedback on social media platforms than anything else because the whole world is watching. It’s as if you are shouting into a loudspeaker in a fully-packed stadium that’s all ears for you,” says Ammar Akhtar, CEO of 1CallGroup, a Dubai-based company that specializes in technology and social media.
However not all corporates and businesses are willing to give in to social media pressures yet, as they insist they will continue to treat all customer complaints equally while they continue to evolve.
“We treat all complaints with a high level of importance whether they reach us through the phone, our web chat system, traditional media, or social media. Our Twitter and Facebook accounts are simply alternative channels for customers to connect with us,” said Ian Hodges, Personal Banking Head at RAKBank that today has over 35,000 followers on Twitter and over 128,000 on Facebook.
According to him, social media queries that primarily stem from Twitter usually expect a faster response due to the nature of the platform. “Just as we have a service quality team that addresses customer concerns through our helpline or in person, we also have a dedicated team that handles social media complaints and web chat queries routed through our website and are committed to resolving them at an average response time of 1 hour on weekdays,” he says.
In addition to @RAKBANKlive which sends out all Twitter communication, his bank now has a separate Twitter handle, @RAKBANKhelp, dedicated to resolving customer concerns or complaints. Today, around seven per cent of the complaints recorded per month are received via that channel.
“While many customers still opt for telephone service when seeking the bank’s help, we are seeing an increasing number of customers take advantage of social media to communicate with us in a more visible and immediate approach,” he said.
Perhaps that’s the way to go for other corporates in a country that remains one of the region’s ‘top tweeting’ with 2.5 million tweets a day and has the highest percentage of Facebook users.
UAE has Arab region’s highest percentage of facebook users
According to Emirates Center for Strategic Studies and Research (ECSSR), the UAE has the Arab region’s highest percentage of Facebook users, 41 percent of the entire population, as well as the highest proportion of LinkedIn users, 14.8 percent of the population, and is one of the Arab region’s top tweeting countries with 2.5 million tweets a day.
Almost three quarters of the UAE population have smart phones
Dubai’s ruling Sheikh Mohammed has 2.72 million Twitter followers at @HHShkMohd. Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed, Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi and Deputy Supreme Commander of the Armed Forces, has 427,000 @MBZNews followers.
