#Socialutility: The FS Italiane experience

A conference followed live on Twitter, with the #socialutility Hashtag, at the Palazzina Reale di Firenze (Royal Palace of Florence) from Florence's Santa Maria Novella train station

Florence, 08 March 2016

The Ferrovie dello Stato Italiane, in Florence, for the status of work on the new communication methods.

This occasion was offered by "#SocialUtility - New services for businesses and citizens," a conference designed to understand the relationship of public service companies with social networking, Facebook, Twitter, WhatsApp, to determine if they have supplanted the old toll-free numbers, other media and, once again, the function of customer satisfaction surveys.

Yesterday morning, at the Palazzina Reale di Firenze (Royal Palace of Florence) at Florence's Santa Maria Novella Station, the meeting was moderated by Francesco Di Costanzo, journalist and director of cittadiniditwitter.it, which saw the participation of not only the FS Italiane, Enel and Eni, but, in particular, the Brescia Mobility experience was proposed. Brescia Mobility is the public transport company which was the first in Italy to use WhatsApp to inform it users in real time.

At the end of the morning a round table discussion was conducted with Tuscan companies: Publiacqua, Waters Spa, Tiemme, Ctt North, Estra and Aer.

The conference was followed live on Twitter with the #socialutility Hashtag. Thus, the statements made by the various guests in the room were diverse:

"It is important for the leaders of the companies to understand the value of communication on social networks" - said Ing. Marco Medeghini, the General Manager of Brescia Mobility.

And still quoting Medeghini: "What is the most frequent phrase used by our customer care personnel on WhatsApp? Thank you"

Medeghini himself explained that "WhatsApp even leads to a change in the language style; the use of emoticons for example."

And yet we must no longer call it "NEW communications, for it is we who change the perspective!"

For Daniele Chieffi, Web Media relations, social media management and reputation monitoring Manager at Eni, the "priority is to respond to customer needs for clarification and maintaining contact with our stakeholders."

"The social networks as a place of freedom. In word, in replication, even for companies, "said Chieffi.

And he spoke of the "transition from Social Media Manager to Reputation Manager" for which they became "necessary shared strategies and periodic meetings."

The event, organized by Cispel Confservizi Toscana (Tuscany) and Ti Forma in media-partnership with cittadiniditwitter.it, saw the participation of the Gruppo FS's, Elisabetta de Grimani, Web and New Media Senior Manager, and Social Media Manager Arianna Mallus.

"The method that we have set for ourselves requires constant coordination with the command centre, with staff members who have on-board experience, have received on-the-job training in social network communication," said de Grimani.

"The interface with the command centre is linked to the @TIRegionale profile, an experimental project regarding the local transport of Lazio, launched on the occasion of the Jubilee. These people, whenever the need arises, interface with the social network central team in order to determine the correct response to be given to the customer. At the time this modus operandi (MO) was effective. We also have an internal chat room for the purpose of communication. We will soon make public our Telegram channels ".

"On the web, relationships are built out of necessity: users realize that on the other side there is, however, another person" explained Arianna Mallus.

"Sometimes clients give us a good morning, and for us it signals an incredible success. Being able to distinguish between production, communication, reputation, punctuality can be very difficult. What unites us all is this: to be able to develop procedures that allow personnel to keep up with customer requests made through new channels. It is a wonderful challenge. "