Social media has irrevocably changed customer service. That is certainly true of Indian Railways. While only a small segment of train travellers bother with social media, there are still enough of them for IR to take seriously. IR’s official Twitter account — @RailMinIndia — has around 2.7million followers, and it gets around 6,500 mentions a day; around 3,000 of these are complaints.
The organisation has a department working solely on social media interaction, with around 150 people over 68 divisions monitoring Twitter, Facebook and Instagram accounts. “The number of followers and messages is increasing day by day,” says Anant Swarup, executive director of the railway board’s public grievances department.
The team reacts in real time, immediately forwarding messages to divisions concerned for further action.
They are trained to react quickly in emergencies, which could range from an urgent need for medical help to simpler requests like a parent needing milk for a baby. “We receive around 100 medical help tweets from inside running trains every day,” says Hanish Yadav, OSD to the Railway Minister. “Each and every call and letter to the Ministry is monitored and made a note of , which the Minister reviews on a regular basis.” He says the expected response time from the social media team is around 30 minutes. Railway Minister Suresh Prabhu told The Hindu , “We were looking for a medium for passenger grievance redressal which was accessible to all, and also transparent for us to track the resolution of the concern. Twitter is a powerful medium and met our needs. It gives me satisfaction when we are able to make journeys better by our intervention. I also keep an eye on the Twitter handle. This gives me a feedback on our services and helps us to improve.”
Incidentally, Mr. Prabhu’s personal handle, @sureshpprabhu, is more popular than the Ministry’s with over 3 million followers.
