the bucket. But Blum, who came from an extensive call center background, was determined to bring high-quality service ex
CUSTOMER CUSTOMER SUCCESS SUCCESS STORYSTORY
IMPROVEMENT IN AGENT PRODUCTIVITY
57%↑
IMPROVEMENT IN SOCIAL RESPONSE
30%↑
POSTS PROCESSED WITHIN FIRST 6 MONTHS
200k
RESOLUTION RATE ON CUSTOMER RESPONDED POSTS
78%
Spectrum is among the largest providers of video, high-speed data and phone services in the United States, connecting more than 15 million customers to entertainment, information, and each other. With over 50,000 employees across the U.S., Spectrum serves customers in 29 states, from Maine to Hawaii, by offering cutting-edge digital technology and a rich range of home entertainment and digital services.
Business Challenge When Phil Blum was selected to lead the social media arm of Spectrum’s customer care operations in 2010, the company was unsure of the value of assigning customer service agents to monitor Facebook and Twitter. With 15 million residential customers, the vast majority of whom use traditional support channels like voice and chat, social media felt like a mere drop in the bucket. But Blum, who came from an extensive call center background, was determined to bring high-quality service experience to customers on the Web. “We understand that there are a lot of people that come to us via social media because that’s
the way they like to interact,” says Blum. “We also understand that it’s a highly visible support channel, unlike voice or chat.” Blum’s team was given increased latitude and empowered to reach out to customers in the social sphere and ensure their needs were met. Blum started with a three-person team, using Radian6 to engage with customers on Twitter and Facebook. “Radian6 is a great listening tool, but it’s not the most efficient engagement tool,” he says. Radian6 also lacked the tracking and analytical components
“We give customers the opportunity to use the channel that they best prefer, and in the process, we direct volume away from the call center and reduce queues and wait times.” -Phil Blum, Social Media Customer Care Manager
CUSTOMER SUCCESS STORY
Blum needed to report on his team’s progress and monitor his agents’ performance, which were critical to ensuring his team could scale to address the ever-increasing volume of Spectrum customers seeking support via social media. Blum shared his concerns with Carter Calle, who manages Spectrum’s alternative care strategies. Together, they made the decision to switch to Lithium Social Media Management. “We really liked the product, we really liked the team, and we really liked the culture at Lithium,” says Calle.
Solution After only a few months using Lithium Social Media Management, Blum grew his team to 10 agents and saw noticeable increases in their productivity and ability to respond to customers. Instead of using a patchwork of Radian6, Excel spreadsheets, e-mail, Facebook, and Post-It notes, the social customer care team now has one streamlined platform in which to identify messages that need a response, manage social conversations to resolution, and gather data on their performance. “Bringing Lithium Social Media Management to bear on the problem helped us to very quickly organize our efforts: we turned tweets into cases, the cases could be assigned and tracked and reported on, and that gave us insight into how many people it takes to manage the volume effectively,” says Calle. The integrated nature of Lithium Social Media Management has also allowed agents to tackle cases more quickly, saving the time and hassle of switching between tools. Instead of asking customers on Facebook to e-mail them directly, the customer care team is able to seamlessly integrate private Facebook messages into their conversations with customers. Lithium Social Media Management also allows ad-hoc workgroups to be set up to accommodate spikes in specific service issues. Spectrum enters negotiations with various broadcasters to address retransmission rights and carriage fees, which at times results in a channel or channels being blacked out in various markets until agreements are reached. Lithium Social Media Management reallocates those posts to be moved to a separate workgroup where multiple customers can be replied to at once, allowing the team to not lose focus on other customer service issues.
The Results Within weeks of rollout, Spectrum successfully used Lithium Social Media Management to respond to customer inquiries, field complaints, and log tickets for service issues. For the first time, supervisors and managers had
detailed metrics and analytics on post dispositions, agent handle times and response times. After six months of using Lithium Social Media Management, the Spectrum social media customer care team: Lithium Social Media Management also proved critical in sustaining Spectrum’s customer relationships in the midst of one of the worst storms in recent history. As Hurricane Sandy devastated the east coast in the fall of 2012, closing businesses and knocking out power in multiple states, customers were anxious to learn when their Internet and television service would return. With cellular towers overwhelmed, many of them turned to their only remaining avenue of contact with the company: accessing Facebook and Twitter via their smartphones. The hurricane was a crucial test for the team. With only ten agents and an overwhelming increase in posts, the team was able to step up to the plate and received kudos from grateful customers for their timely response.
Building a Social Content Hub After finding success with Social Web, Calle and the Alternative Care Strategies team are now working with Lithium to launch a community platform. “We quickly discovered that offering a community is a critical way to ensure customers get support,” says Calle. “We want to bring the conversations that are already happening about us onto the Spectrum domain so that we can engender goodwill, provide more transparency, and weigh in on those conversations where appropriate.” The community will be fully integrated with the Social Web product, allowing Blum’s agents to respond directly to forum posts, create and escalate cases, and direct Facebook and Twitter users to relevant posts within the community.
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