We are lagging behind???

No meant to belittle whosoever, as we in Singapore, at times, tend to have this kind of "elitism" inside us that we tend to think we "are better than those"around us because of the so-called achievements we accumulated for the past few decades since that "forced independence" in 1965.

Nonetheless, it's always good to look around and see for ourselves are we really that "fantastic"?

No quite so, if we are talking about having our transport operators embracing the social media tools to communicate with their customers.

Last year, I was at Penang for a short getaway and I depended heavily on their local bus service provided by "Rapid Penang", despite its short-comings in some areas, I would say the services provided by them are on-par with ours, if not better in terms in utilize the wonders of both "Facebook"and "Twitter".

Pictured above is a "prt-screen" of the Rapid Penang's Facebook page.

As we can see for ourselves, the crew behind the scene constantly update bit of information pertaining its routes, the place of interest in Penang and which bus number to take to bring you there.

Because of its instant two-way interaction, I feedback my rather unpleasant experience while trying to take a bus back to KOMTAR area from Gurney Street. Below are excerpts of our "conversations".

PoHui Ko I faced some difficulties while I took 103 to Gurney Plaza when I was there last Oct.

As there was no clear bus stop for boarding and alight and I recalled I had to cut across some dark alleys before I found a bus stop and board the bus that brought me back to KOMTAR

June 16 at 4:46pm

Rapid Penang Hi Po Hui,you mean there are no bus stop infront of Gurney Plaza?

Actually there is a bus stop right in front of Gurney Plaza. which is facing the gurney drive. May be you have used another exit which is facing to the Kelawai Road, but there are also bus stop nearby. Hope you wont have this kind of bad experience during your another trip in Penang.

You can always ask the people around you, am sure they will be kind enough to show you the way.

June 16 at 5:02pm

PoHui Ko Thanks for the feedback, my recollection was that I alighted at the roadside car park facing the sea and the bus driver told me wait there for my return trip to KOMTAR.

But having wait for a lengthy period, I decided to go to the back of the Gurney plaza and told by the "jaga" the bus would stop near the taxi stand and after the lengthy wait I gave up before cut thru' the dark alley to find a visible bus stop.

June 16 at 5:07pm

Rapid Penang Okay, i see your problem now. During your next visit may be you can call our ICIS Center 04 238 1313 to know the estimate arrival time for the next bus so that you can plan your time and to avoid long wait. You can call us to seek for more bus information as well.

Hope this could really help you in future.
Have a great evening & Happy Duan Wu Jie to you.

June 16 at 5:13pm

PoHui Ko Thanks for your prompt reply and tip, I am impressed with the way you handled my feedback, keep it up ;)

June 16 at 5:16pm

Do take note of the date and times in italic to see how promptly the communication took place.

Having said that, just take a look at ours at our own backyard that only when a letter to the papers then a well-crafted reply from whichever particular operators will appear on the papers days later.

How Lame, isn't it? Especially, we are living in such a fast-pace society yet we still have people-behind-the-scene having to "think-thrice" before penning their replies to the feedback.

A check at our very own operators' presence on the social media front had helped to shed a few lights on how backward we are.

Pictured above is the only type facebook page I'm able to source on SBS Transit.

Looked kind of mundane with the plain, "straight-from-the-textbook" kind of introduction to the company background, etc,. While I just could not locate their presence of "Twitter".

I would not say SMRT fare much better, but we can see from here this "facebook" page is more of an "ad-hoc" purpose (for some on-going programs) and something that is not permanent I guess.

But back to Rapid Penang, whom I felt our two operators can learn a thing or two about instant, constant engaging with passengers by taking a look what they tweeted below.

See the "human touch"?