The American Red Cross, in partnership with Dell, opened its third Digital Operations Center in San Jose, CA today. The new center joins two predecessors in using social media and social data to help solve a broad range of humanitarian issues.
Powering up this new center will provide social media monitoring and coverage from coast to coast. The first Digital Operations Center opened in Washington D.C. in 2012, the other center in Dallas, TX, recently celebrated its one-year anniversary.
The Red Cross supplies nearly 40 percent of the nation’s blood supply, requiring a steady supply of volunteer donors. In addition to the new Digital Operations Center, a new Dell grant includes support from Dell Digital Business Services, to help the Red Cross optimize their social presence to attract new blood donors, encourage more blood drives, and help existing blood donors to expand their relationship with the Red Cross.
“The relationship between Dell and the Red Cross has been critical in helping the Red Cross use social media to carry out its disaster response mission,” said Suzy DeFrancis, chief public affairs officer, American Red Cross. “We’re extremely grateful for the Dell grant, and support from Dell Digital Business Services. We’re excited to launch our third Digital Operations Center and expand the partnership to further support innovation in the humanitarian space.”
The new Digital Operations Center builds a center of expertise on the west coast where volunteers can work with their emergency manager partners to provide social data for regional responses. Recent disasters have shown that having a better view of the social conversation helps the Red Cross anticipate disaster needs and connect more people with resources during an emergency.
In combination with the event, Dell Services today introduced new social listening capabilities that integrate data from multiple sources and provide a 360-degree view of consumers. The technology framework combines digital data, existing business rules, and predictive analytics to empower organizations with highly actionable customer intelligence. Dell’s social media solutions help customers engage audiences to anticipate and predict decisions and help inform optimal business outcomes across multiple verticals, such as healthcare and education.
The set of solutions provide a single aggregated metric of social conversation for easy monitoring and tracking to determine sentiment and advocacy of consumers. By leveraging these capabilities, organizations can affect many areas of business—from marketing and sales, to customer service and care management.
“Connecting people quickly to aid is critical in times of disaster,” said Raman Sapra, executive director and Global Head, Dell Digital Business Services. “We’re thrilled to expand our support of the American Red Cross and optimize social data to help their organization provide real-time disaster relief and increase life-saving blood donations.”
Beyond humanitarian support, solutions from Dell’s Social Media Services have practical applications for all businesses. “Organizations can combine their data from past transactions, such as donations or purchases, along with information gained through real-time consumer engagement, including social posts about the brand, to get a well-rounded understanding of how and when to engage their audiences,” Sapra said. “Through these solutions, our customers have a complete consumer analysis in an actionable dashboard view that helps drive positive business outcomes from their social engagement efforts.”
Dell and the Red Cross have a shared vision to empower people to get involved in humanitarian efforts through social media. Over the course of 20 years, Dell has generously donated more than $1.3 million to support Red Cross disaster relief and social media efforts. To date, Dell employees have given a total combined contribution of more than $266,000 globally to disaster relief, and a recorded over 7,500 hours of volunteer time between 2010 and 2014.
The latest grant from Dell will provide the Red Cross with a new level of insight and analytics from listening and tuning, to optimization as it relates to blood donors. Dell Digital Business Services is working with the Red Cross to provide social media listening tools, engagement services, enhancements to the existing blood donor engagement process, and to create a social media care channel that provides earlier insight into potential challenges.
To learn more about the American Red Cross, visit www.redcross.org.
To learn more about the American Red Cross Digital Operations Centers, check out the following: