Organisation Name : T-Mobile
Industry: Phone Company
Web References:
Social Media Forum Blog on T-Mobiles customer service
3 brands that use social media in customer service to boost happiness
10 global brands with best customer service on facebook
Who they are:
T-Mobile USA is a national provider of wireless voice, messaging, and data services capable of reaching over 293 million Americans where they work, live and play. T mobile has approximately 45,000 employees with a headquarters in Bellevue, Washington.
J.D Power awarded T-Mobile with the “Highest Ranked Customer Service Perormance among Full-Service Wireless Providers” for 2015
How T-Mobile uses social media to provide awesome customer service.
T-Mobile uses their social media channels to provide excellent customer service and as a place to listen and react to their customers, unlike some companies who just use social media as a place to deliver messages or try to push their product. Since T-mobile made this change the number of its social media fans almost doubled between the beginning of 2013 and the end. Socialbakers, the social media analytics site, consistently ranks T-Mobile as a “top 10 socially devoted” company. This is especially impressive since the program has been in existence for only two years.
T-Mobile hired Social Media customer service experts Brand Embassy to help them out with their social media customer service. Brand Embassy have worked with other large companies such as IBM and have been featured on websites such as forbes.
“The first and the most important difference is that social media works in a public space,” explains Ivo Marecek. “Everyone can see everything and every single answer is thus very important. For us, social media combines a mix of customer service, marketing and PR – it’s not just an online call centre.”
Using Brand Embassy’s integrated technology, the T-Mobile social customer care team are now able to log all customer cases, regardless of the incoming channel. With the speed at which social media can provide customer feedback, the social care team also works to record and organise feedback, ensuring that it is used to solve issues, errors or to improve products.
A recent study from Social Bakers showed that from March 2012 to May 2012, T-Mobile received 2,541 questions or comments on their social media accounts, and responded to 86 percent of them. This made them the second most socially devoted global brand, coming in behind Dutch Airline company KLM.
T-Mobile has done an excellent job of forming relationships with their customers through social media. In addition to announcing the“uncarrier” promotions, the company uses Facebook and Twitter to post job openings. What a great way to find your next employees than in a population of followers who are already fans of your T-Mobile?
Another aspect of T-Mobile’s customer service is helping customers to help themselves. With the My T-Mobile website self-care or mobile app, customers can easily and quickly manage their accounts without the need of calling in to speak to someone .Brand Embassy’s role within this is to collect comments and feedback, then pass them over to the product managers who can improve the app for customers, encouraging customers to move directly to this option for problem solving.
Lessons for others.
1. Customers don’t go to a companies social media channels to get advertising messages. The more a company tries to sell via social media, the more likely the very people it’s targeting will stop listening. Social media should be a place were customers come to get help.
2. Your customers will be channel hopping. Some Customers will call the hotline, some will comment on Social media and others will combine retail outlets, call centres and social media to resolve their issues.
3. It is possible for some companies to simplify the process so customers can quickly find all information on their website or self help app without even having to call customer service anymore.
4.Good social media customer engagement builds your public image. Social media is a public space where everyone can see everything and every single answer and comment is very important.
5. Customer engagement through social media helps companies to identify where there is room for improvement and efficiently.
T-Mobile: Delivering Un-carrier results in social support, presented by Michelle Mattson from SocialMedia.org on Vimeo.
Submitted by: Tania Motuzas
To contact the author of this entry please me email at : taniamotuzas@me.com
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