Social Media Feedback Works For Railways, Over 3,000 Complaints Addressed Daily

India’s Railway Ministry has found a tool to connect with passengers and address their grievances in an effective manner. It’s Twitter. The ministry’s handle, which currently has around 2.7 million followers, is acting upon 3,000 complaints that it receives on the micro-blogging site daily, The Press Trust of India has reported.

The Railway Ministry under Suresh Prabhu had set up department to act as a contact point between the Railways and commuters on social media in July 2015. This department of the Railways works exclusively on social media interaction.

“Twitter has proved to be 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,” Prabhu said in an interaction with a group of journalists.

“Our team gets around 6,500 mentions per day in which around 3,000 mentions are in the form of complaints. We are immediately notified about the new tweet and our team chips in to address the complaints after the initial verification of the passengers. Then we forward the messages to divisions concerned for further action,” an official, who did not wish to be named, was quoted by PTI as saying.

According to the official, the Indian Railways has 150 staffers across 68 divisions to keep a close watch on passenger messages on the social media and ensure that passengers woes are solved within 30 minutes. After relevant action is taken, the team reaches out to the complainant and seeks feedback, he added.

Other ministries of the Indian government, including the Ministry of External Affairs led by Sushma Swaraj, Ministry of Civil Aviation led Ashok Gajapathi Raju and Ministry of Power led by Piyush Goyal, also engage actively on Twitter.