This is a bit of a procedural detail, but does open up a broader discussion on Government responsibilities to respond to citizens, customer service service level agreements and expectation management.
When someone sends an email or a letter to a Government agency or Department there are typically established response times that the agency or Department must comply with, typically around 24 or 48 hours.
With social media in government there are two issues here. Firstly, at what point is it regarded that the government has received that inquiry, feedback or comment … if we even have to classify blog comments and posts on discussion forums in a government-operated social media space as inquiries the same as direct emails and letters.
Secondly, even if we respond to a blog comment within the same timeframes as for direct contacts … can that be regarded as a direct response? The person who posted that comment may never notice that we’ve replied, in which case we have neglected to actually respond to them.
With our Training.gov.au Project Blog we will actually email people who’ve posted comments after we respond (if they’ve provided an email address) and let them know we have posted a response to their comment and provide them a link to the blog post.
Should this be standard procedure? What about for discussion forums? Notes on Facebook walls? Posts outside government-operated social media spaces?
Or should we relax the rules?
// purecaffeine.com, UX, design, social media and Gov 2.0 blog by designer Nathanael Boehm, Canberra, Australia. Licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 2.5 Australia License.
{ 6 comments… read them below or add one }
Nathaniel
What an interesting post. I think Government n.0 will need to develop capability and capacity in this space. I wondered what role you thought RSS may play in this. I wondered too if what happens when a post to a Government n.0 site uses a link to a statement of ideas. For example, if I was keen to explore social inclusion with DEEWR and linked to http://keithlyons.wordpress.com/2009/09/03/minds-on-the-margins/ would I anticipate a response to my point of contact and the blog post?
Best wishes
Keith
We make an effort to brand track all mentions of our project Training.gov.au and engage on other forums and blog posts … but we do that out of desire to engage, not because some SLA necessitates it.
An interesting point though – with your blog post. I read it earlier this morning; haven’t commented yet – but if/when I do even though I’ll be responding as myself and not representing the Government, but does the distinction matter? The answer is probably “yes” but it’s still interesting to think about, the lines blurring between government, government staff engaging as government staff and government staff engaging as themselves.
Wow … a 4 minute turn around … I had gone off to Twitter in the interim. Thanks for replying. I think the key message for me in your response is engagement. I recall the phrase (c 1865) … government of the people, by the people, for the people! I think this is the essence of n.0 for me … we use the available technology to (bravely) empower participation and engagement. Thanks, Nathanael
Really interesting points. The issue of responsiveness is key to any discussion around citizen engagement with government. In my experience, it’s a matter of very slow moving, conservative ’structures’ being forced to speed up to effectively engage with a public that expects a swift response. In the end, these organisations will be compelled to overhaul their procedures, but I do worry about how long it takes in some cases.
Kylie,
I expect the pioneers leading the charge in Gov 2.0 will be people like myself, motivated and passionate innovators and do’ers … and that expectation is consistent with the representation I see at the forefront. This being the case, those sort of people, like myself, will be working nights and weekend, following up on blog comments, mentions and links because we love doing it.
So I expect the issue of responsiveness won’t surface till sometime later when the hype is over, we’ve all moved on and it falls back to the structure in general to support that function.
The issue will be exacerbated by the fact that the pioneers will have done the organisations as disfavour by setting high expectations through their keenness.
Anyway, I could be wrong – but that’s how I see it from my view of this part of the world.
Thanks for your comment!
A number of government departments still have emails on a 28 day response time (like their mail response), on the basis that to make the response faster would discriminate against people without email access.
Most Australian government blogs have been structured on a 9-5 Mon-Fri moderation cycle.
Therefore sorting out the appropriate timeframes for response – and who is allowed to send those responses – is still a contentious issue, and will be for years I expect.
In terms of your two questions, below are my views:
1) Receipt is considered in mail terms when the letter arrives at the government office – which can still be a number of days before it reaches someone able to respond. In terms of email it is considered when it arrives at the organisation’s mail server – therefore for social media it should be when it arrives at the government’s server/site.
When the comment/post is NOT made on a government site, such as a discussion in a third-party forum, it should be based on when the government agency checks the forum, which should be on a regular cycle.
2) Is a response via social media a direct response? I’d say yes. It is in direct reply to the customer’s comment/question. When government responds by mail, it doesn’t matter if the customer reads it or not – it has been sent. If the medium reflects the one the customer uses, and the customer could reasonably expect a response in that manner, then the response is sufficient. If the customer did not expect a response in that manner, additional notification is prudent.
Cheers,
Craig