If you've been reading V.I.A. for any amount of time you'll know that TELUS has been a supporter of ours for a long time - and vice versa. In fact this week marks 5 years since they came on board as a Community Sponsor of ours, helping us deliver the Awesome to you (for free) each and every day. When we first partnered up we had 3,750 followers to our @VIAwesome Twitter account (which we thought was pretty impressive at the time), and no smartphone; everything happened from desktop.
Our pre-TELUS cellphone situation... kinda
On July 15, 2010 TELUS came in and connected us with a new smartphone and a data plan and it really allowed us to grow; 6 months later we had doubled our followers and placed 3rd in the Georgia Straight's BEST OF category for "Best Local Twitter Account". We've since gone on to grow our Following beyond 70,000 on Twitter, and 77,000 on Facebook, and what was once a small blog has turned into an actual media company. They've been with us - and us with them - almost from the beginning.
A couple of years back they produced this video below about where we came from and, as the editor-in-chief of V.I.A., how their network keeps me connected so that I can do my job from anywhere. Some things have changed since we shot it but the core of the message remains the same.
It's crazy to think that it's been half a decade with TELUS, and I'm thrilled today to announce that we're now part of a team of 14 similar publications. #TeamTELUS is now made up of 14 blogs from across the country, and I'm personally an official advocate for this local business that we support, and which supports us. Have a look at THIS BLOG POST that TELUS posted that introduces you to all of the personalities.
The first order of business when they brought the team together was to actually bring us together into the same room, so they flew in a couple of the folks from Calgary to meet with the rest of the Vancouver members of the team at their new headquarters at TELUS Gardens last week. We had a video conference with our counterparts in the East as well as a bunch of TELUS employees who answered a bunch of our questions and shared some insights behind the company, the ethos, and how they really do put customer service first.
Their Expect More initiative goes even further to expand on their dedication to making their customers happy, and the one fact that stuck out the most to me was that in 2014 the Commissioner for Complaints for Telecommunications Services received 11,340 complaints from telco customers. Only 4.4% of those were about TELUS. Not bad.
We also learned about their TELUS Wise program that's made up of thousands of volunteers who give their time to educate parents and kids about how to be safe online. The online component (HERE) is a fun and engaging portal for kids to explore.
We wrapped up our conference call/meeting with drinks on a patio, and many high fives. Here's looking forward to another 5 years as a #TeamTELUS advocate. Their brand ethos is perfectly in line with ours, and they certainly qualify as one of the Most Awesome.
