Telus shows us that the future (of social media) is friendly

TELUS is a Canadian communications company that was officially founded in 1990. Since then, the company has grown to become Canada’s fastest growing national telecommunications company.

TELUS provides services to 8.6 million wireless subscribers, 1.7 million high-speed internet subscribers, 1.4 million residential network access lines subscribers and 1 million television subscribers. Telus also provides communication products and services, which include wireless data, Internet Protocol, voice, television, entertainment and video and it’s also the nation’s largest healthcare IT provider.

The success of TELUS can be credited to their company ideology. The TELUS slogan is “The Future is Friendly” and the company incorporates this ideology into each aspect of their brand. TELUS is known for their cheeky use of ‘cute’ animals throughout their branding and marketing campaigns to emphasize their slogan; but they also take many other measures to ensure the continued success of the company and to demonstrate their loyalty in providing excellent service to their customers.

TELUS is active on a number of different social media channels, including Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Instagram, Google+ and LinkedIn. They also have a company blog and an online discussion forum for customers called the Neighbourhood, that allows customers to “Share thoughts, ask questions, and get answers. All in one place.”

TELUS is very active on each of their different social media channels to ensure a strong customer/brand relationship; however that is only part of the company’s approach to social media. The TELUS Communications Company utilizes a whole enterprise approach to social media; making use of Enterprise 2.0 technologies.

Andrew McAfee is credited with coining the term Enterprise 2.0 and he defines it as “the use of emergent social software platforms within companies, or between companies and their partners or customers.”

Dan Pontefract is a contributor at Forbes. He is also a Chief Envisioner of TELUS Transformation Office, which he describes as “a future-of-work consulting firm that assists leaders and firms with concepts such as open leadership, employee engagement, flexible work styles, collaborative technologies and connected learning.” In one of his contributions to Forbes, he touches base on the impact that corporate culture has on a company’s enterprise social networks. He mentions that although “enterprise social networks can do so much good for an organization’s culture and engagement”; in order to be successful, support from the senior level is absolutely crucial. Pontefract uses TELUS as a successful example of this.

At TELUS, the company uses enterprise social networks that were introduced to the company and it’s 43, 000 employees over a number of years. The technologies were introduced gradually so that each employee could become familiar with the technologies and feel comfortable using them. One example of the integrated social media approach at TELUS includes their senior leaders creating and publishing short, monthly videos to highlight the company’s success, to recognize certain employees for their service and to share feedback and generate discussion. Another example of this is in the form of an internal company blog, which is published by senior leaders to update their employees on company business and to generate feedback and ideas from their employees in regard to customer service.

Pontefract notes that “a series of organizational-wide behaviour and culture change programs (and models) were introduced including leadership, engagement, recognition, community, learning, career, performance and collaboration.”  He reiterates that these programs were gradually introduced to employees to encourage growth and collaboration within the company and he credits the success of their enterprise social networks to this.

Lessons for Others

Emplo further emphasizes on the significance of enterprise social media. Emplo is a software as a service platform that helps companies create a collaborative work environment by encouraging social collaboration, autonomy and employee growth.

On their company blog, they give 5 Reasons Why You Should Use an Enterprise Social Network. They note that utilizing Enterprise 2.0 technologies are “revolutionizing the way many companies do business and facilitate collaboration between management and employees.” Emplo notes that such technologies

• increases employee morale – employees are more likely to be satisfied in their job if they know that their opinions and ideas are valued, and Enterprise 2.0 technologies allow employees to express their ideas, feedback and concerns.
• improves communication between employees and senior officials – employees working in different areas of the same organization experience different challenges and opportunities. Enterprise social networking creates room for improvement in all aspects of the organization.
• enhances collaboration between departments – when communication is encouraged between departments it allows for business growth, reiterating on the previous point.
• reduces volume of emails and increases productivity – enterprise social networking allows organizations to keep employees informed at a fraction of the cost and time, in turn increasing productivity.
• enables geographically dispersed teams to work together – for companies that span international borders, this contributes to efficiency as it cuts travel costs, and time previously spent on travel can be used more productively.

When companies incorporate Enterprise 2.0 technologies (such as TELUS has) into their business from a top down approach, an inclusive learning environment is created. This encourages employees to share their ideas and contribute to the company in a meaningful way. When done properly, an integrated approach to social networking within a company will contribute to business optimization through offering a better product at a reduced cost and will help contribute to employee retention.

When social networking is integrated into corporate culture and used in conjuction with social media marketing, an organization will see an improvement in overall business performance and will be more likely to see continued success.

If you have concerns as to the accuracy of anything posted on this site, please send your concerns to Peter Carr, Program Director, Social Media for Business Performance.

---

References