Webteams

I work for a large organisation that's working in service of the Dutch government. Our mandate is to establish if people are entitled to invalidity pensions or unemployment benefits.

The other day I noticed something remarkable (at least for me) on a website that I frequent; in one of the sub-fora a person asked a specific question about a payment he had recieved from us. The forum was not in any way related to us. Yet, the third reply in the topic was from a poster telling the TS that he had recieved a PM and that through that PM he would be informed about how to get full disclosure about the specific payment.

It turns out that this third reply was indeed a posting by a person who is also employed by the same organisation as I with the job to surf the fora, scan for questions, remarks, complaints etc about our organisation and to address them.

I still don't know quite how to react to this. On the one hand it is an extremely pro-active attitude that can prevent a lot of mistakes and misunderstanding. On the other hand it means that we're behaving like a Big Brother entity, essentially reducing people's anonimity online.

Does this exist in other countries too? And if yes, what you think about it. (Of course you're free to voice an opinion if you don't have it in your country)

I've seen companies do this kind of thing, and over here there is a lot of debate on this kind of stuff on government communication teams. Some agencies have begun tip-toing into it.

I think it's not necessarily big-brotherish if one anonymous person claiming to be from your organization messages another anonymous person claiming to have gotten a payment. It's all anonymous until people get in touch via more direct means.

But is your organization paying someone to troll boards looking for this kind of stuff or was it just an accident?

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Originally Posted by Dreadnaught

I've seen companies do this kind of thing, and over here there is a lot of debate on this kind of stuff on government communication teams. Some agencies have begun tip-toing into it.

I think it's not necessarily big-brotherish if one anonymous person claiming to be from your organization messages another anonymous person claiming to have gotten a payment. It's all anonymous until people get in touch via more direct means.

But is your organization paying someone to troll boards looking for this kind of stuff or was it just an accident?

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These people are being paid a real salary to surf.

Wow, that's pretty interesting. I would he very curious what their policies are. But I do see how tings like this could save money. That said, there is a flip side argument that this kmd of tram may be the result of some failure in the existing support structure.

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Originally Posted by Hazir

These people are being paid a real salary to surf.

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This happens on NewEgg a lot, where for certain companies/product makers if one of their items gets a particularly negative review, or is indicative of a person receiving an improperly manufactured product, a representative from that specific company will write a response to it, either explaining why the problem exists, or offering assistance.

Example

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Dreadnaught

Wow, that's pretty interesting. I would he very curious what their policies are. But I do see how tings like this could save money. That said, there is a flip side argument that this kmd of tram may be the result of some failure in the existing support structure.

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Well, with my employer being a conglomerate consisting of 6 organisations thrown together, god knows how many computer systems, 24,000 employees alnd serving around 6 million people (potentially) it's not hard to see where things could go wrong. I think they came up with this idea because they finally are taking customer satisfaction serious.

I see that in my own work too. Where the standard procedure in the past could be run through without ever actually talking to the person involved (in my department at least), now you get asked by management why you didn't make phonecalls to the client while dealing with his objection. (Do I need to say I feel very funny to see my personal approach being part of the standard procedure?)

But that's not really my bone with this. It also means if I happen to write certain words or letter combinations, a person paid by my employer could read something that's not necessarily something I want to get back when at the office.

That's true, I see what you mean on that front. Though arguably you're anonymous enough here. But I suppose in that respect, anything you post here could theoretically be seen by an employer (much like employers sometimes go nuts trying to see Facebook and Twitter posts,, etc.