DBS Outage: Big Saga with Small Voice on Social Media

by Willy Lim
(Co-Founder, NetProfitQuest)

You probably have read DBS outage in the news already. If you haven't, you can read about it at ZDNetAsia

With frustrated customers sharing on twitter about DBS's outage, DBS started a twitter account @dbsbank on Monday 9:21 AM July 5th to respond to this crisis, caused by technical difficulties that brought Singapore's largest banking network to a halt Monday morning.

Now, we all know that when you start a twitter account, you have ZERO followers. Followers on social media are not built overnight. It requires time to build a loyal following. So while DBS's brave foray into Twitterverse to communicate the crisis is worthy of praise, the timing is a tad too late. With so little followers, DBS's updates on Twitter are only picked up by the most hardcore social media users.

10 hours, 26 tweets, 283 followers later, DBS disappeared from Twitter as fast as it had appeared, with a final tweet on Monday July 05 2010 19:42:57.

We also know that relationships with customers take time to build. Social media can act as an informal front-line customer service desk to respond to crisis as well as to spread good vibes when something turns out well.

I sincerely hope that DBS has a long-term social media plan to engage customers through conversations on social media like Twitter, and not finish off what has started as a bold step in the right direction with only 26 tweets.

Only time will tell.

If you want to hear what other singaporean social media practitioner thinks about the issue, check out my social media buddies' posts below:-

Roderick: DBS Customers Vent Their Anger on Social Media
Aaron Koh: DBS Bank – One Tweet too little too late