Thursday August 2nd 2018
Midlothian Council is launching a new dedicated customer service Twitter account @midhelp on Monday 13 August.
The council has been helping residents with issues such as missed bins and faulty street lighting on its main Twitter account @midgov since after its launch in 2010.
However, the growing numbers of residents requesting services via social media has prompted a rethink on how best to use these channels to serve local people.
Council Leader, Councillor Derek Milligan said:
“We now have just short of 14,500 followers on Twitter.
“With social media a normal part of daily life, more and more people are using it as a way to ask us a question, request a service or make a complaint.
“We want to give our customers the best possible service and we think that a dedicated Twitter account will help us do that. We’ll be able to answer enquiries promptly, make sure we don’t miss any enquiries and generally keep people up to date with anything they need to know thus saving them a call.”
The new service will run from 8am until 6pm. As well as responding to enquiries, @midhelpm will have information on issues affecting local people such as a power failure or burst water main.
The new channel will also make it easier to identify where residents might be experiencing problems with council services and take proactive measures. The main account will continue to operate with general messages about council services and what is going on locally.
Councillor Milligan added:
“Residents who don’t use social media can still get in touch with us in the usual ways.
“However, we want to support residents to do more online as it is a quick, efficient and cost effective way to communicate with us. We’d encourage as many people as possible to use the new @midhelp account.”
The new Twitter account is supporting the continued drive to encourage residents to increase their online contact. This will help secure savings of £500,000 by 2020.
If you have a service request or want to report an issue to the council on social media contact them on Twitter @midhelp.
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