HelpHandles™ Special Report on #StormCiara 🌊
On Sunday 9th February, the UK was hit by heavy rain and winds exceeding 90mph as Storm Ciara brought wide spread disruption to ground transportation services, flights, and power outages for hundreds of thousands people…
In this special edition of the HelpHandles Insight Series we take a close look behind the scenes at how the UK’s infrastructure support services responded to the public on social media on Sunday 9th through Monday 10th February in what was one of the worst storms the UK has seen for nearly a decade.
Electricity Distribution Providers: #StormCiara
The UK’s largest electricity distribution providers are no strangers to power cuts, and in the days leading up to Storm Ciara prepared their field operations and contact centre response teams to deal with the imminent loss of power caused by incoming high winds across most parts of the UK.
For U.K Power Networks, who deliver power to 8.3million homes and businesses across the South East, East of England and London, it was a particularly busy Sunday with 353,000 power supplies affected by Storm Ciara, the team were in fact the busiest of the electrical distribution providers receiving over 1,108 direct mentions to their handle on Twitter…
…and there was only one thing on the mind of customers who took to Twitter throughout Sunday, and into Monday…
However these high volumes on public social media over a 48 hour period were seemingly too much as the UK Power Networks social media team struggled to managed the high volumes on social with customers experiencing particularly long response times to their queries…
For Scottish and Southern Electricity Networks, customer support is a top priority for the 3.7 million homes it provides electricity to. With the team reportedly restoring power to 65,000 properties and deploying over 800 field and support staff during Storm Ciara, their social media team worked hard to respond to customers in just under two hours on Twitter…
While the U.K Power Networks social media team were in fact the busiest electricity distribution provider on Twitter during. Storm Ciara, it was in fact Western Power Distribution UK team who were the fastest to respond to customers, with the team reaching out to customers on average within 5 mins of receiving mentions of #StormCiara….
…and doing so with just the right amount of humour too…
This carefully managed and personalised approach to responding to customers was matched by a high response rate and overall positive sentiment among conversations with customers which meant the WPDUK social media team came out on-top of the HelpHandles UK Utilities Index both with the highest amount of inbound mentions over the Sunday 9th February and into Monday 10th February, out performing other regional providers with the highest overall score for customer service Twitter.
Nice work Western Power Distribution UK!
Water Companies #StormCiara
It wasn’t just power outages that brought havoc during Storm Ciara. With a month and a half’s worth of rainfall dumped on towns and villages within 24 hours reports of mass flooding and problems with water supplies in the aftermath of Storm Ciara started to appear in the news…
United Utilities, the largest listed water company in the UK serving the Northwest of England and a population of nearly seven million – issued a warning to thousands of residents to not drink, wash or cook with their tap water in the Cumbria regions, as engineers continue to work through the night to repair water main damaged by Storm Ciara, while police declared the damaged a major incident, closing schools in the region.
In the aftermath of Storm Ciara the United Utilities team continue to do their best to reach out to customers in need of more information on the major incident pointing them to more information in just over 3hrs…
Rail Transportation #StormCiara
For train commuters, there was yet more bad news at this time of year, as the misery continued, ground transportation services experienced massive delays due to fallen trees, rogue trampolines and widespread flooding all disrupting the rail network.
…and it was the team at London North Eastern Railway, LNER who stood out as the best performers on the HelpHandles UK Transportation Index.
The LNER team received a total of 2,964 mentions during Storm Ciara putting them in the top 10% by volume on HelpHandles during the weekend of Storm Ciara…
…and yet more impressively they were able to respond to customers within just 6 mins. A huge effort from the LNER social media response team.
All the good work was not for nothing as the teams efforts were well rewarded with a positive sentiment score among the conversations with customers…
Aviation #StormCiara
In the air the high winds created by Storm Ciara over the United Kingdom and the North Atlantic meant that a British Airways Boeing 747–400 broke the record for the fastest subsonic flight between John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York City and London Heathrow.
The aircraft was propelled by a strong tailwind and the jet stream across the Atlantic, completing the journey in 4 hours and 56 minutes and captivating the public on Twitter…
And it was Heathrow airport that came out on-top as the best performers oon the HelpHandles UK Aviation Index, responding to customers on average inside 20mins…
Receiving their fair share of mentions during Storm Ciara…
The Heathrow Airport social media team worked hard to ensure that 85% of responses made were done so quickly and efficiently…
…it wasn’t difficult to spot what passengers where tweeting about…
Yet the team, ensured that the sentiment of their conversations stayed on the right side of the dial with the team hitting a +17 score on the HelpHandles Index…
Conclusion
For the UK, the winter period is always a particularly tough time of year. With dark nights drawing the country is not a stranger to colder temperatures and bad weather, but Storm Ciara has been a real test for both the public and support teams who have worked hard to provide relief and assistance where necessary on public, conversational social media channels.
But through these particularly challenging times support teams and the public alike showed resilience in the face of adversity, coming together to see the light through the dark with touches of empathy, compassion, and humour being expressed on public channels, for which full credit is deserved for the people of the United Kingdom
And for all those involved it seems that the disruption is set to continue throughout February, as the Met Office announces a new storm on its way this weekend, support teams are yet again in for a busy weekend helping customers in times of need…
