serious social response

2

share this whitepaper

lithium.com | © 2013 Lithium Technologies, Inc. All Rights Reserved

Lithium social software helps the world’s most iconic brands increase loyalty, reduce support costs, drive word-of-mouth marketing, and accelerate innovation.

Lithium helps brands to build vibrant customer communities that:

contents

1 the Twitter explosion

2 getting it wrong

3 getting it right

4 the real-time customer care challenge/opportunity

6 keepin’ it real with community

7 serious social response, serious ROI

9 best in class social response

1

share this whitepaper

Technology-fueled customer-led disruption is at the door.

Nowhere is this more apparent than on Twitter. With its

exploding user-base, Twitter turned into one of the world’s

largest brand-consumer communication channels over night.

Unlike earlier media revolutions like radio, TV—even the early

Web—this channel is 100% in the hands of the consumer.

Social media has indelibly changed the way we communicate

and therefore changed customer expectations. Because

communication through social media is now very different in

three important ways: It’s persistent, transparent and two-

way. Evidence of what consumers think of your brand is there

for all to see—ostensibly forever. Which puts your brand’s

responsiveness in the spotlight, warts and all.

And brands aren’t ready. Too many brands have watched

painfully as customer questions and issues coming across

the Twitter feed multiply over night. Every night. Night after

night. Unless they have a way to respond efficiently and

effectively, they know that in what Forrester Research calls

“The Age of the Customer”, they’ll face one mother of a

customer experience crisis. Indeed, many brands already

are. Forty-eight percent of customers today report feeling

frustrated when they don’t receive a quick response to

their inquiries through social media.1 It’s no wonder—their

expectations are high.

the Twitter explosion

42% expect a response within 1 hour

32% expect a response in 30 minutes

24% a response

within 24 hours

57% of consumers expect

the same level of service through social

media 24/7

Sources: Inbound Marketing Agents, Convince and Convert

Active Twitter Users: 218 million

Average followers: 208 each

Average minutes/month on Twitter: 170 eachSource: AllTwitter

2

share this whitepaper

Most brands don’t outright ignore the fact that their

customers are on Twitter—97% use branded Twitter handles.

But most use the channel as a broadcast medium tweeting

on average 221 times per week.2 What’s desperately missing

on Twitter from brands is active, timely response. Eighty-

percent of tweets about companies require an actionable

response,3 but 70% go ignored.4

Silence. It’s about the worst possible customer experience

a brand can deliver. While customer expectations for timely

response over social channels continues to grow, those could

be the most expensive 140 characters you’ll ever ignore.

getting it wrong

93% of consumers have switched brands at least once in the past year because of a poor service experienceSource: NewVoice Media

3

share this whitepaper

For more and more consumers, being online is now

synonymous with being social—65% of Internet users today

use social networking sites5 and half of consumers now

claim they are fluent or expert in social media.6 And they’re

bringing their consumer behavior with them to the social

web. Seventy-two percent report they use social media to stay

connected with brands and 51% say they use social media to

share product experience and advice.7

Social media is here to stay. Your customers have turned it

into a channel for connecting with you whether you show up

or not. Your job, of course, is to do way more than just show

up. Your job is adapt your business functions such that they

are best suited for today’s social customer.

The social customer experience—open, transparent, peer-

to-peer brand and product discussions happening in online

communities and social networks—is fully in the hands of

your customers and it’s always on 24/7. You can bury your

head in the sand and ignore your customers on Twitter, you

can default to traditional broadcast tactics over social media,

or you can adapt by recognizing that:

1. increasingly, your customers think of Twitter as a

utility—a one-stop-shop for getting quick and relevant

customer support.

2. “support is the new marketing”—service experiences are

becoming more influential on overall brand perception.

3. your social responsiveness can seriously impact the

customer experience.

4. there’s upside when you get it right—huge upside.

getting it right

The revenue benefits of a better customer experience range from $31 million for retailers to $1.3 billion for hotels and wireless providers. Source: Forrester Research

4

share this whitepaper

“Targeted and relevant real-time [customer care] requires businesses to move faster than they are used to, acquire technology that’s just barely been invented, and use creative capabilities they don’t yet have.”

-Jeffrey Dachis, The Dachis Group

the challenge

One of the biggest hurdles to exceptional social media

responsiveness is the challenge of operating in real-time.

Businesses are used to getting actionable data every 30, 60 or

90 days, not seconds. But that’s precisely what social media

has presented to business: an urgent need to exponentially

step up social media responsiveness.

And it’s going slowly. While 56% of customers begin their

customer service journey via a digital touch point, 41% of

those then switch to a traditional channel before achieving

resolution8—begging the question, what happened? Why are

digital and social service experiences missing the mark?

One answer is that customers simply expect them to be much

faster. We’ve long known that customer expectations are

different for call center vs. email inquiries. Now that social

media is becoming one of the Big Three service channels,

we’re discovering that customer expectations here are even

more demanding—and less fulfilling. While customers expect

social customer care in near real-time, the average response

time across the top 100 retailers on Twitter is a disheartening

11 hours 15 minutes. A mere 20% of top retailers provide

social response within an acceptable time frame, while 19%

don’t respond at all.9

Social moves us increasingly toward real-time interactivity

precisely because that’s how human beings prefer it. Social

customers are already learning that looking for help from

others like themselves online is the closest thing to real-

time support they can get, and it’s fast becoming their

preferred channel.

the real-time customer care challenge/opportunity

63% search for a solution online from others like themselves

Sources: CMO Council, McKinsey

47% use call centers

45% use email

30% use live

chat

when customers need help:

5

share this whitepaper

The problem is that brands have been much slower to get to

the social media trough than have their customers. Why? Sixty-

seven percent claim they don’t have the time or resources, 50%

can’t measure success and 42% lack the competency.10

the opportunity

Because a full 81% of brands still haven’t figured out social

customer care, there’s still room for you to differentiate

on social responsiveness. Because of markedly changing

customer expectations, moving from batch to real-time

processing—particularly in the area of customer support—

is delivering huge value gains for those getting there early.

Time Warner Cable resolves 78% customer care issues on Twitter—and does it 30% faster

Sky responds to tweets in an average of 8 minutes

Globe repsonds to over 40,000 social conversations in five minutes or less

Contrast these response times with the 11+ hours top

retailers now take to respond over social channels and

imagine how different the experiences are—and which, of

course, is better. And remember that when customers get

the service they want and expect, they can indeed be very

good to brands.

After a good customer experience 86% of consumers will recommend the product or service to a friend

After a great customer experience, 79% of consumers will always or frequently become repeat buyers

And that social media makes it very easy to spread their

enthusiasm.

50% of consumers expect to find service and support on Facebook—10% of brands provide it

Just 30% of brands use social media to improve service and responsiveness

Just 19% of customer service teams are using social channels

Sources: CMO Council, Our Social Times

Source: Empirix

40% of consumers sometimes share good customer experiences via social media

32% frequently share it

+12% always share it 84% are

likely to post about good

experiences via social media.

6

share this whitepaper

Before social media and the Internet, options were limited for

getting the word out about your brand and products—television

commercials, magazine ads, and billboards. With only a few

seconds at most to grab people’s attention and drive the

message home, broad strokes were the way to go. But the

same catchy one-liners and visual clichés that have been

advertising staples for decades simply don’t work through

social media—especially when it comes to customer care.

Scripted responses, templates and canned quips will miss the

mark when it comes to social. Yet, that’s what most brands

do—use social media as a broadcast channel.

Consumers want authenticity from brands today, not

cleverness. They want relevance, not noise. There is nothing

more authentic than hearing about how another customer

like yourself solved your problem, nothing more relevant

than finding the precise answer you were looking for right

away. And there’s no better place to get both those things—

authenticity and relevance—than a customer community.

Dialing a customer community into your social customer care

solution builds four big benefits:

trusted content—Just 14% of consumers trust brands while a

whopping 92% trust their peers. Your customers will engage

more with content they trust.

SEO value—when you host the conversation, you get the traffic.

analytical insight—now you own the information, not

Facebook or Twitter. Now you can derive actionable insight

and develop predictive customer analytics.

cost savings—the only way to truly scale your social customer

care solution is with the help of your customers. Every

customer that helps just one other saves your business a full

service interaction.

26% of A1 community users find the solutions they need from the A1 community in under 3 minutes. 25% consider the A1 support community their primary service channel, saving A1 an estimated 168,000 service interactions per year.

keepin’ it real with community

############## ############# ###50% of brands tweet 30x week

################################################# ############################################### #################################################### ################################################## ######################US brands tweet on average 221x weekSource: mediabistro

Top 10 most followed brands tweet every

:06 to

:20minutes

7

share this whitepaper

Serious social responsiveness has countless benefits both

hard and soft. From significant cost reduction to a more

differentiated brand, savvy, adaptive organizations garner

big benefits from their investments in more relevant and

responsive social customer care.

lower costs

With serious social response:

Time Warner Cable increased social agent productivity by 57%

Cisco reduced resolution time by 32% and saved $7 million

Time is money. The more time you save with each service

interaction, the more money you save. Better yet—if you

fully deflect a service interaction to a social channel, and if

the service issue is fully resolved in that channel, you can

practically cross the cost of that interaction right off your

balance sheet. Depending on the industry, using agents to

serve customers can cost hundreds of dollars per interaction,

whereas a social customer care interaction can cost as little

as pennies.

more satisfied customers

100% of giffgaff support is handled by customers, and the brand enjoys an NPS of 73%—one of the highest in the world.

After BskyB introduced social customer care across multiple platforms:

• Calls are an average of 1:48 shorter

• 29% of customers say they no longer need to call for help

• Customer satisfaction rose to 87%

Customer satisfactions investments are often considered a

“nice to have,” rather than an essential. Not so. Investments

in customer satisfaction are essential. Satisfied customers

stick around longer and their loyalty is worth serious coin.

It’s 50% easier to sell to existing customers than find new ones

Attracting a new customer costs 5x more than keeping an existing one

A 5% increase in customer retention increases profitability by 75%

80% of your company’s future revenue will come from just 20% of your existing customers

serious social response, serious ROI

Sources: Forbes, Bain & Co., Gartner, Lee Resources, Inc.

8

share this whitepaper

richer differentiation

For most brands, the customer experience is top of mind.

90% of brands declare CX is a top strategic goal

75% of brands aim to make the CX a point of differentiation

Source: Forrester Research

But the outpouring of user-generated content across the web

has been a huge disrupter for business and many are still

grappling with how to handle it. The plethora of channels,

platforms, apps and solutions available today often result

in disjointed, inconsistent customer experiences—the very

opposite of what brands are trying to achieve. The result is

that few do it well.

64% of companies ranked “OK”, “Poor” or “Very Poor” on the experience they delivered.

source: Forrester Research

What this means for your business is that customer

experience leadership is still up for grabs. Differentiating your

brand from the competition by becoming one of the most

socially responsive around is entirely within your grasp.

higher brand advocacy

Still think brand advocates are a myth? Like unicorns and

Tinkerbelle? Before you dismiss the idea entirely, consider

that the most frequently used word in Twitter profiles: “love”.

Social customers are passionate customers. Social media

taps into an age old human behavior—perhaps our most

defining characteristic—the drive to share.

74% of social customers use social media to encourage friends to try new products

source: CMO Council

Consumption has always been a social act—something we

share about ourselves, something we relate to in others.

From, “these rocks make the best arrows” to “my new iPad

rocks!” humans have always had a deep drive to share the

experiences they have with the objects they use every day.

Your job is to make sure those experiences are top notch—by

being exceptionally responsive via social channels.

100% of giffgaff support is provided through social channels—and 75% of new giffgaff subscriptions are driven by word of mouth

9

share this whitepaper

Best in class social resonsiveness requires a social response

tool for high-volume customer service interactions—one that

scales as your team (and social volume) grows. And that’s

just your ante—table stakes for getting in the game. To win,

you need to go beyond just meeting customer expectations—

you have to exceed them. Here are the five pillars of a best in

class social response solution:

1. authentic conversationCanned responses over social media are a big no-no and

social customers will call you out to all their fans and

followers if you make the mistake of “talking at” them instead

of “speaking with them”. The millions of tweets and posts out

there aren’t just announcements, they are conversations and

should be treated as such.

2. priority routingThe concepts introduced and perfected by high-volume

contact centers such as IVR menus, call routing and

message queues can now be applied to social customer

support applications. Before an agent even sees a post,

workflow, automation and prioritization engines running

behind the scenes should deliver the right message to the

right agent at the right time.

3. specialized rolesSpeaking of right message, right agent…the most productive

service agents have specialized roles— Agents, Supervisors

and Managers are typical of large customer service

organizations. Use roles with access levels that match skill

sets to get social customer care teams up and running

efficiently and effectively.

4. meaningful measurementMentions, fans, followers, trending topics, word clouds—all

great data, but your social response solutions is all about

response. You need to know how well you’re meeting

customer need, and for that, you need actionable intelligence.

Measure social response success with metrics like time to

agent response, queue backlog, customer satisfaction and

flush rate.

5. community content“Keep it real and keep it coming”. There’s no more authentic

content than community content. And there’s no way to scale

your social responsiveness without it. Customer communities

are authentic content engines that continually produce

reliable support content and deliver it quickly.

best in class social response

10

share this whitepaper

About Lithium Technologies: Lithium social software helps companies unlock the passion of their customers. Lithium powers amazing social customer experiences for more than 300 iconic brands including AT&T, BT, BestBuy, Indosat, Sephora, Skype and Telstra. The 100% SaaS-based Lithium Social Customer Experience™ platform enables brands to build and engage vibrant customer communities to drive sales, reduce service costs, accelerate innovation and grow brand advocacy. For more information, visit lithium.com,or connect with us on Twitter, Facebook and our own community–the Lithosphere. Lithium is privately held with corporate headquarters in San Francisco and offices across Europe, Asia and Australia. The Lithium® logo is a registered Service Mark of Lithium Technologies. All trademarks and product names are the property of their respective owners.

1. Is Your Social Media Response Satisfactory? Inbound Marketing Agents

2. How Social Media is Changing Customer Service, Mashable

3. Conversocial 2013

4. Maritz Research

5. Internet Adoption Over Time, Pew Internet

6. Kelton Research

7. The Digital Divide, CMO Council

8. McKinsey, Digitizing Customer Care

9. Half of Top Retailers Resolve Service Issues Through Social Media, BizReport

10. 9 Quirky Facts About Twitter Users, The Huffington Post