Community Spotlight: Chris_K

[Martin-O2]

Hi everyone and happy Friday! 

This one has been a long time coming but I'm happy to present our very own @Chris_K under the Spotlight! 😄 He is one of our O2 colleagues and a member of the O2 Social Media Team - you might have seen him posting news, updates and helpful tips around the forum since 2013. 

See the questions and answers below to get to know Chris_K a bit better! 🙂

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We know you are a member of O2 Social Media team. This involves O2 Twitter and O2 FB, as well as updating the forum. How many other team members work with you and how do you deal with nasty abusive queries? (I know this is a bit deep Marjo but these folk are the 'shopfront of O2' and I really want to know how they deal with all the flak they get) 

Without getting into any boring details, there are a few different teams that make up ‘O2 Social Media’ and the part I manage is responsible for engagement and handling anything that’s urgent or sensitive. Within that team there’s myself and four others I look after, who make my life easier because they’re all great at what they do.

As far as handling nasty or abusive queries, unfortunately social has changed over the years and outside of the trolls who we try not to feed, we do see our fair share of comments that just shouldn’t exist. Some examples of this could be seen during Pride Month in June where we had shown our support for LGBTQ+ communities and instead seeing similar comments of support and understanding, we saw many negative and insensitive comments.

We worked together on creating a sort of framework of how we’d tackle these kind of comments which helped empower the team and give them a way to ‘fight back’ against online hate while showing those folk that it’s not OK to make such comments. I could almost guarantee none of those folk would have said the same thing to someone they knew was part of the LGBTQ+ community to their face, so what makes it acceptable for them to say online? Protip: It’s never acceptable. And we’ll make them know that!

What are your hobbies when you are off duty? 

I consider myself a gamer so you’ll usually catch me on my Xbox or PC during my down-time as it helps give me a way to chill with some friends and have fun, escape reality for a while and lose myself in some action or great story telling. Away from my desk all together though, I like motorsports and especially Formula 1 and BTCC. You’ll catch me at Knockhill racing circuit a few times throughout the year no doubt! And just for something completely random – I love pottery but don’t get much opportunity to do it. If I manage to get a house next year with a garden, I hope to get a decent sized shed at some point and look into making my own little pottery studio.

If you weren't doing this job ~ what would be the dream job for you? 

If I didn’t get into Social Media and if I could go back and pick different subjects at school and choose a different degree, then I’d have loved to have done something with my hands. When I look at the freedom and creativity that woodworkers and carpenters have, that really appeals to me. To be able to make things from scratch to whatever specification I or someone else wants, sounds really satisfying and fulfilling to me.

If a new device is due to be announced, do you get prior warnings what the release is due to the need of setting new appropriate tariffs? 

I don’t have anything to do with tariffs, prices or make any sorts of decisions around how we sell/market/range devices, but I do sometimes get some prior notice before devices are announced to the public. This helps me to plan team resources and brief our social teams on what’s coming and what to be prepared for. In terms of what I get to know about – it differs every time. Sometimes I get to know about most things like the name, specs and features, and sometimes I get nothing. For example, a popular month of the year for a new phone launch is September and genuinely, most of the time I have no info other than the rumours and hearsay that the rest of the world can find out about on the internet.

What is the strangest thing to have happened to you while you were at MWC? 

I’ve not been for the last couple of years for obvious reasons, but having gone to MWC maybe 3 or 4 times now I can think of a few odd things that happened over the years, including:

1) There was the time a robot barista made me a coffee but then glitched out and launched it at me instead. Starbucks, if you’re listening, ROBOT BARISTA’S AREN’T READY YET!

2) There was the time the King of Spain visited the Telefonica stand and I was getting eyeballed by one of his security details so hard that I felt uncomfortable enough to walk away even though I done nothing wrong and the most lethal thing on me or in my bag was a sachet of hot sauce

3) When I was outside in the sunshine eating lunch (with my sachet of hot sauce!) when all of a sudden a random guy with a VR headset sat beside me. After some pleasant chit chat, he told me he worked for a pornographic website that specialised in VR content and offered to show me a demo on his headset. I had no idea how to react in that situation so I faked a phone call and walked away. Awkwarrrrrd.

How do you feel about the answers you see being offered by other Community members here on the O2 Community boards? 

Considering none of you have access to our internal processes, systems and knowledge bases, I find some of the knowledge being shared here to be pretty incredible at times. From discussions around what phone to get, to giving someone advice on potential fraud, and everything in between, it’s not often I see anything I raise my eyebrow at. Many of our regulars have been on the O2 Community since before I had any involvement, and especially considering you do this in your own free time, I think all of you are doing some fantastic work and I for one truly appreciate it.

What's been the funniest/most cringe-worthy query to any of O2's social media channels that you have had to deal with? 

Oft… There’s probably a tonne of moments I’ve just forgot all about (when you look at hundreds of tweets a day, it can all become a blur over time), but there’s definitely a few that have stuck in my head so I’ll share a small selection:

1) Tunde. Everyone knows this one right? It’s not one I can take credit for – that all belongs to ‘Kal’ who’s since moved onto other things, but this is often highlighted as one of the best engagements we’ve had on our social media channels. You can find some of the tweets here.

2) Some obsessive music fans we’ve chatted with in the past who forgot about the music and started becoming a bit stalker-ish or cringe, asking us things like if they can throw items of clothing on stage, if we could arrange for the singer/band to have eye contact with someone, what temperature it is in the toilets, and the many other truly weird questions we get

3) During pretty much any outage. If you want to see some funny tweets – both TO and FROM us, check here, here and here

Do you ever see the O2 Community Forum being integrated into one, or more, social media networks?

The only social media platform where I could see the O2 Community potentially work would be on Facebook via ‘Groups’. There are a lot of Communities that use Facebook Groups successfully and effectively but when we look at the way the O2 Community works and how you and our members use it, we’re not sure the Facebook platform fully aligns with our vision and strategy for the Community. It’s not something we’ve ever discussed or looked at seriously, and with the recent re-launch of the Community with a fully responsive design, I just don’t see any kind of integration happening anytime soon – if ever.

If you'd get a rodent as a pet, which one would you choose? 

A fake one. Seeing from you and others who own pet mice, rats and similar, I know they can make for some great pets – but they’re just not for me. I’m a dog person to the core. From the day I was born until the day I moved out of the family home, I’ve lived with dogs all my life. Living in rented properties since then, with the landlords not allowing pets, has been a real frustration for me. Once I manage to get my own place a dog will definitely be something I’ll be looking into. At the end of the day I just want a dog where we both click with one another, but if that dog happens to be a Chow Chow, Newfoundland, Husky or Tibetan Mastiff, then even better… Big fan of those breeds. I’d like a dog big enough I could ride into battle once the zombie apocalypse strikes!

I've noticed your posts on the environment and would like to know what spurred your interest? 

It’s less of an interest and more just what I feel I should be doing. Looking at what’s happened this summer alone – with several locations around the world have experienced their most extreme weather since records began, and recent reports that the gulf stream is at risk of a potential collapse – shows beyond any doubt that the world’s environment is changing at a global scale. I know what I do as an individual makes 0% difference, but collectively it all adds up, so I’m happy to be part of a business like O2 which has pledged to become net-zero by 2025.

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Thanks a lot for answering our questions Chris_K, much appreciated! 💪

If anyone has any additional questions or comments for Chris_K, please post them below. 😎

[gmarkj]

Great to hear more about the inner workings of the Social Media team, so thanks for that @Chris_K and @Martin-O2 although I was confused about the mention of @Marjo in the first question...

Apart from the assistance in surviving the apocalypse, any reason for those dog breeds? Someone we know has an English Mastiff which my daughter could easily use in that way, and my dad used to have a Burnese Mountain dog so large breeds are great. Apart from the food bill and the clean up after them..

[Cleoriff]

I share the same opinion as @gmarkj  about knowing more about the Social Media Teams. It was a very interesting read.

Just wonder how you are coping with the increase in comments from members, now we have been encouraged to refer queries to you on FB, Twitter and Instagram rather than ask people to contact customer services?

I share your passion for Formula 1.Very exciting last 3 races to come.

My daughter-in law has a Chow. What a lovely gentle dog she is.

Thanks for the spotlight @Chris_K 😊

[jonsie]

I was a little worried about all these social media referrals.

I imagined one man and his dog being overwhelmed

Nice to know he has some help now 😂

[RunrigForever]

Thank you @Chris_K for a very interesting Spotlight.

Hope you get your own place next year when you can have a big dog as a pet and involve yourself with pottery in your garden shed xx

[Chris_K]

Hey all, thanks for the interest and the Q's... Been a part of the Community for many years now and it's been great getting to know bits and bobs about everyone, so happy to share some info and details so you can get to know me a little better

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@gmarkj wrote:

Apart from the assistance in surviving the apocalypse, any reason for those dog breeds? Someone we know has an English Mastiff which my daughter could easily use in that way, and my dad used to have a Burnese Mountain dog so large breeds are great. Apart from the food bill and the clean up after them..

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I've personally spent some time with each of these breeds and there's something about gentle giant dog breeds that really appeals to me. I know they'll be more work and cost more to feed and maintain but big dog life is definitely more me. I've nothing against smaller or even medium dog breeds but when I daydream about the future and having a house that belongs to me, I see me on the couch with a monster sized dog snuggled beside me.

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@Cleoriff wrote:

Just wonder how you are coping with the increase in comments from members, now we have been encouraged to refer queries to you on FB, Twitter and Instagram rather than ask people to contact customer services?

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Don't worry about us - we have a good bunch and that's what we're here for. We've been quite busy the last few weeks due to various news and announcements but we're still making sure we get around to everyone.

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@Cleoriff wrote:

I share your passion for Formula 1.Very exciting last 3 races to come.

My daughter-in law has a Chow. What a lovely gentle dog she is.

Thanks for the spotlight @Chris_K 😊

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Definitely agree on F1. I'm not a fan of all the politics and childish finger pointing going on right now and while I'm not a fan of how Toto/Merc are handling things, Horner/RB are really not making themselves look good. And don't get me started on Verstappen... Next thing will be RB claiming Merc didn't fill Lewis's water bottle to the top so that their car was running lighter.

And super jelly of your daughter-in law having a Chow Chow! ❤️

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@jonsie wrote:

I was a little worried about all these social media referrals.

I imagined one man and his dog being overwhelmed

Nice to know he has some help now 😂

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Haha, don't worry - there's way more than just one man and his dog in our team... There are cats too! 😅

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@RunrigForever wrote:

Hope you get your own place next year when you can have a big dog as a pet and involve yourself with pottery in your garden shed xx

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Thank you... The pottery idea is just one of those things you think about, but might never happen. As much as I love it and have fun with the bits I've dabbled in, I've no idea how good I'd actually be when it comes to making my own stuff. But you never know, maybe there'll be an Etsy storefront in the future with my name on it 😉

[lewys-gp]

Really enjoyed reading this, @Chris_K 😁.

[liggerz87]

Aka the elusive man of the o3 community lol liked getting and hearing more about you you was saying you liked pottery have a look https://www.google.com/search?gs_ssp=eJzj4tZP1zcsSc82MDQoMGC0UjWoMLEwM020MDdPTrO0NE9JM7cyqDBKNrRISzU... you might like this it's based in North Wales