BEHIND
“After reading a customer’s post, you wonder if you are going to get blasted...”- Courtney
THE WALL.
MORE THAN BILL QUERIES OUR TEAM HAS SEEN IT ALL ...READ MORE INSIDE
Changing The Current
Meet One of The Teams supporting JPS’ Social Media
10 THINGS TO AVOID ON TWITTER
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Twitter Don’ t s! with ShenTab Follow her on Twitter @MzShenTab
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Don’t Follow Everyone and his dog: Although getting followers for your Twitter account is largely a matter of following others, you can’t simply start following thousands of people with no regard to whether they might be interested in your business! Find potential followers with carefully considered search terms
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Don’t Ignore Your Competition: go and study their Twitter presence, and see what they’re up to. You could pick up valuable ideas about how to interact with the customers in your market, and you might also consider following a few (or a lot) of their followers Don’t Use The Twitter Webpage: it’s OK for occasional use, but for heavy-duty marketing you need a decent tool like Hootsuite, Tweetdeck, or Seesmic. Each offers a host of advantages over the plain ol’ Twitter webpage, from speed and convenience, to the ability to do things that just aren’t possible the old-fashioned way, like scheduling updates in advance.
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Don’t Leave It to Chance: if you tweet only when you feel like it, or have a burst of activity followed by days of no updates, your hard-won followers will soon forget about you. Plan your approach;write a whole series of updates in advance, and then set up a schedule to post them automatically. This means that even if you write your updates sporadically, they’ll go out like clockwork.
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Don’t Forget That Twitter is a River: unlike Facebook, where people can scroll back through your wall postings to the beginning of time, Twitter is ephemeral. If someone isn’t looking at their feed when you make your update, it will quickly scroll by and be lost to them. So you do need to do a lot of updates to ensure most of your followers will see them.
Don’t Re-Post Identical Updates: doing a lot of updates doesn’t mean posting the same tweet a hundred times in a row! Try to vary your updates, so that regular followers don’t get bored from seeing the same thing over and over again. You can still keep the content similar, just vary the delivery
Don’t Let Mentions Go Unanswered: if someone on Twitter @ mentions your account, you must respond quickly, or your account will come over as a mindless PR bot. By taking the time to respond personally you can immensely improve the perception of your business on Twitter. Don’t Forget About Timezones: because Twitter is a river, you must schedule your updates to appear when users in different timezones are likely to see them. If you only tweet during the US afternoon and evening, your UK followers may never see your tweets. Don’t Be Obsessed by Retweets: while a tweet that goes viral with hundreds or even thousands of retweets is what every Twitter user secretly dreams of, the truth is that you’ve probably got a better chance of winning the lottery. Instead of trying to craft the perfect tweet, work on creating depth of content to fill out your schedule of updates.
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don’t be too serious: to stand out with just 140 characters you’ll need something a little bit different. Twitter users appreciate the quirky side of life, so let your unique take shine through and find your audience. You’ll soon be tweeting with the best of them.
MEET OUR Customer Satisfaction Team
KERRICA
H
ow long have you worked at JPS? Tisona Johnson: May 2014 will be my 6th year with the Company. Allison Haynes- Laraque: 13 Years Courtney D. Whyte: Since May 25, 2010 Kerrica McGregor: I joined the JPS family in summer 2003 as a summer employee and later in 2003 as a temporary worker and returned in 2004. Julie-Ann Grant: 5yrs What’s your favorite part of working at JPS or in your team? Tisona: My favourite part of working on this team is the freedom to exercise working on my own initiative as this increases confidence in my abilities and to become more knowledgeable about our Company. I also enjoy the diversity of our core functions on a daily basis as we get the opportunity to interact with customers face-toface, on the phone and via social feeds. Our team interaction mirrors that of a typical Jamaican family with the variance in opinions and personalities yet we always find common ground. I do enjoy my work. Allison: The focus and commitment to excellent service delivery that each team members brings. Courtney: My favourite part of working at JPS is that I believe that I have been blessed to be a part of teams (Quality Assurance team being the first) that understands what it means to be a team. Well as it relates to JPS, that goes without saying it’s an electrifying place to work. JPS is strongly into nation building and being associated with the company and its spirit of volunteerism make one proud to be a part of a revolution.
Kerrica: One of my favorite things about working at JPS is the in the capacity in which I work; I am able to show customers a different side of our company, a side many customers feel does not exist. I am able to dispel that negative notion and to show our customers that they are valued and (that) we do care. It’s a feeling like none other (smiles). As for the team, I absolutely love the fact that though it’s a mixing pot of personalities, we all get along great. It’s like a family here. We really care about each other and look out for each other. I love ‘em. Julie-Ann: I was in the Call Center before and I enjoyed that very much. Reason is that, you get to listen to different stories/problems and in turn get to appreciate what you have.
COURTNEY
What is the coolest or most interesting story that you’ve ever heard about from one of our customers? Tisona: Too lengthy to mention .. Allison: Justification for bill payment holidays (wish we could). Courtney: I was assisting an elderly customer who asked me if I was married and inquired as to how old I was. When I told her my age she said you should have been 17 years older. Kerrica: It’s probably not cool or interesting; it’s a serious matter but the request was a little funnyhad a customer the other day who asked us to take the fuel portion off her bills (permanently) and she promises not to tell anyone; she is only one customer so it will not matter (according to her). She sent a letter, we responded of course that wasn’t possible and the
TISONA
reasons for same and what she could do but she wrote back another letter. She isn’t about to relent at all. Julie-Ann: One day a customer was quarrelling on the phone ranting and venting. Then he stopped and said, “neva mind, mi a go call the MIR”. He meant the OUR!! Another is when a Security Guard called querying his bill. He said he doesn’t understand how his bill is so “high” as he has no “compliance” in his house. He meant “appliance”.
but in some cases, these are customers who have been visiting the offices or calling the Customer Care Centre without the situations being resolved, so at the point of making the social media complaint, they are at boiling point (understandably so). But I have the challenging but yet awesome task of bringing closure to those matters once and for all. Julie-Ann: The volume of complaints made through this medium can be challenging.
What has been the most challenging aspect of dealing with customers on Social Media? Tisona: I do enjoy assisting customers on social media however, I find it very challenging when a customer has a particular issue but because they are so overwhelmed with emotions they fail to include important details such as an account number or contact number for us to assist them. Failure to include this information usually prevent a quick resolution on first contact hence the ongoing challenge. Allison: The fact that service delivery that falls below our customers expectation can literally be exposed to the world Courtney: I am not sure if I would say it is most challenging, but at a glance after reading their post you wonder if you are going to get blasted and its just having to get psyched up to make the initial call. Usually (not always) after the call is made the customer is very appreciative of the call and the explanation. Kerrica: Aaam, I don’t know that they are any more challenges with customers on social media as opposed to seeing them in person or talking to them on the phone,
What’s the one thing you wish customers could understand about the Company that you feel they do not? Tisona: I wish our customers were more aware of the fact that being a monopoly can also be very challenging and not the “bed of rose” like they tend to say from time to time. We do experience challenges in our generating capacity- having to provide for the entire island while trying to ensure we meet our service standards etc. We also don’t have control over the cost of fuel nevertheless; we still have to purchase it from third parties to generate the energy that is consumed. This is the reason why Fuel & IPP charge and energy charge are separate line item on our bills. At the end of the day JPS is a business and as with any business we also aim to make a profit. Allison: Several factors (fuel costs, US$ exchange rate etc) impact the dollar amount of electricity bills that are outside the control of JPS. Courtney: That we do not set the cost of fuel or determine the exchange rate for US$. I also wish that if we could we would make electricity affordable to every single Jamaican. Kerrica: That the company really has no control over the cost of fuel, which
accounts for at least 70% of the customers’ bills. Julie-Ann: That JPS has no control over the increase in the gas price each week What’s your favourite thing to do on your days off from work? Tisona: For those who know me well will tell you I Google everything but it’s not just “googling” for me as that’s just a search engine- instead I tend to seek new knowledge on any given topic really. On my days off I enjoy researching on the web, watching the National Geographic Channel or my new favourite Oprah’s Life class on OWN. And yes I do these things with a “terrible two” on my hand. Allison: Catch up on work. . . Just kidding reading is my favourite pastime. Is that just as bad :) Courtney: No Comment. Kerrica: Sleep Julie-Ann: Spend time with my children, reading or sharing well learnt experiences so that they will make better choices in life than I did. If you could do one thing in the world eg. Skydiving…. what would it be? Tisona: I’ve always envisioned being in the stadium watching the super bowl or touring the city of Paris. Either will do just fine. Allison: I have no interest in extreme sports or adrenaline rush activity, but I would love to visit Cairo Egypt. Putting it on my bucket list. Courtney: Probably bungee Jump Kerrica McGregor: Zip-lining
Julie-Ann Grant: Learn to ride, which I hope to do sometime in the future (smile)
JULIE-ANN
Favourite Jamaican food to eat? Tisona: It’s not one particular food it’s more like an ingredient and that’s curry. I enjoy curry anything…..i usually say “curry makes me hurry” (yea cornie I know right). Allison: Escoveitch Fish and festival, ackee and saltfish, curry chicken with roast breadfruit. Oh you only wanted one ? Courtney: Is steamed fish Jamaican? If not Jerked Pork or Ackee and Salt fish Kerrica: Ackee & saltfish with food (ironically, I only started eating ackee as an adult, didn’t like it as a child. As hard as my parents tried, to get me to try it, I had never tasted it as a child; based on how it looked, I didn’t think that it could possibly “taste good”.) Julie-Ann: Wow!! This one is hard since I like so many things but I think ackee and red-herring with partially ripe roast bread-fruit. Favourite place to hang out? Tisona: I do not like enclosed spaces (with the exception of Carib 5). I’m a nature girl so anything outdoor such as long trips to the country, beach, amusement parks etc will do. Otherwise just spending quality time with my son is fun for me as he finds the simplest thing fascinating. Allison: Hmmm don’t really ‘hang out’ but I love going to the movies Courtney: Truck stop Waterloo Road Kerrica: Home Julie-Ann: Nowhere special, once what-ever I am doing the kids are there I am fine. ||BTW||
ALLISON
Coffee & Conversation Be apart of the conversation on social media...
The man attempted to offer the JPS crew $500,000 to overlook the matter.
Dewane: If he can pay to bribe, just pay the monthly bill nuh smh Elesha: Good job JPS!! Medine: Then if him can offer the JPS team $500,000 how him can’t pay him light:::: smh no man disgrace!
Gregory: Uptown people steal more electricity than those who can’t afford it, powering swimming pools, air conditioning and other large appliances. Lock them up and please let me see the loss recovery reflected in my next electricity bill. Kristal: JPS on the ball man! Richard: Yes you did think is only poor people a thief, those
are the big crooks in the country.
Ashley: The Hotel don’t have a name? Khalil: Yeah my light bill should soon start going down Inmyownwords: Lock up the lot.... Theresa: Lock him up and throw away the key. Him a thief the light ...go see how much he’s paying his poor workers.
Michelle: The only reason d man can offer that
much money is because him not paying the light bill.
Kamay: This is why we in this mess, the big man them don’t want pay bills nor tax smh!!!
Kenneil: Yes they can more than pay. Charge them! Stephen: Illegal Connection Inna Sea Now Dis?
Report theft anonymously to 292-7483 or stoptheft@jpsco.com
@myjpsonline