Lessons in Brand Advocacy and Social Growth from T-Mobile
With consumers switching brands more often than ever before, the rules of customer engagement have changed for marketing, sales and customer service across all industries. As a consequence, driving brand advocacy has become the No. 1 priority. T-Mobile gets it. Using a three-step approach, the company touts almost five million social fans and the fastest response time in its industry, 55 minutes to be exact.
During a recent web seminar event, titled “Can You Build A Better Advocate Through Social Media?”, Krissy Espindola, director, Knowledge Management & Social Customer Support for T-Mobile, explained the keys to its success with end consumers. She was joined by Kai Petzelt, senior director, Product Marketing, SAP, who was on hand to explain what constitutes a true advocate in today’s digital world.
The web seminar started with an overview of why consumer goods companies must engage with brand advocates, who are so much more than cheerleaders, through social media. SAP’s Petzelt shared some mind-boggling statistics on how the use of social media is changing the rules for marketers and for customer service. The most compelling of which showed that 2.4 billion brand-related conversations happen online in America every day.
“As marketers, we have to tap into those conversations that are happening out there,” says Petzelt. “Not doing it would be a big mistake.”
While the consumers who are most passionate about your brand may make up only a small percentage of your customer base, they more often than not serve as the voice for your company. In fact, they are 70 percent more likely seen as reliable source of information, and 50 percent more likely to create content that influences a purchase, shared Petzelt.
So what role does social media play in brand advocacy?
Petzelt says it’s two-fold. “First, social media is the No. 1 stomping ground for brand advocates. You’ll get invaluable insight from engaging with your advocates right where they hang out. Second, social media can be used to amplify the voice of your brand advocates as an endorsement of your product, service or brand.”
After Petzelt shared SAP’s roadmap for effectively engaging advocates, T-Mobile’s Espindola took the mic to explain how her company is mastering social customer support for some 43,000,000 customers in the United States.
“As we evolved our company strategy…we realized that social has become more important than ever as a way to continue to understand what our customers are saying about our products and services and also have opportunities to fix any issues that might be there so that they will stay with us,” said Espindola.
For example, when T-Mobile made its un-carrier announcement (aka simple choice plans with no annual contract) on March 26th, social activity around the brand spiked 941 percent.
To manage explosive social growth, the company formed a dedicated team called T-Force, implemented SAP NetBase for social listening, and currently applies a standardized three-pronged approach to social media to protect its brand and nurture advocates:
The company has reached 94 percent resolution rate with customer interactions through social media.
Click here to listen to this compelling case study on-demand.
During a recent web seminar event, titled “Can You Build A Better Advocate Through Social Media?”, Krissy Espindola, director, Knowledge Management & Social Customer Support for T-Mobile, explained the keys to its success with end consumers. She was joined by Kai Petzelt, senior director, Product Marketing, SAP, who was on hand to explain what constitutes a true advocate in today’s digital world.
The web seminar started with an overview of why consumer goods companies must engage with brand advocates, who are so much more than cheerleaders, through social media. SAP’s Petzelt shared some mind-boggling statistics on how the use of social media is changing the rules for marketers and for customer service. The most compelling of which showed that 2.4 billion brand-related conversations happen online in America every day.
“As marketers, we have to tap into those conversations that are happening out there,” says Petzelt. “Not doing it would be a big mistake.”
While the consumers who are most passionate about your brand may make up only a small percentage of your customer base, they more often than not serve as the voice for your company. In fact, they are 70 percent more likely seen as reliable source of information, and 50 percent more likely to create content that influences a purchase, shared Petzelt.
So what role does social media play in brand advocacy?
Petzelt says it’s two-fold. “First, social media is the No. 1 stomping ground for brand advocates. You’ll get invaluable insight from engaging with your advocates right where they hang out. Second, social media can be used to amplify the voice of your brand advocates as an endorsement of your product, service or brand.”
After Petzelt shared SAP’s roadmap for effectively engaging advocates, T-Mobile’s Espindola took the mic to explain how her company is mastering social customer support for some 43,000,000 customers in the United States.
“As we evolved our company strategy…we realized that social has become more important than ever as a way to continue to understand what our customers are saying about our products and services and also have opportunities to fix any issues that might be there so that they will stay with us,” said Espindola.
For example, when T-Mobile made its un-carrier announcement (aka simple choice plans with no annual contract) on March 26th, social activity around the brand spiked 941 percent.
To manage explosive social growth, the company formed a dedicated team called T-Force, implemented SAP NetBase for social listening, and currently applies a standardized three-pronged approach to social media to protect its brand and nurture advocates:
- Listening to the market to understand the conversations and to know the audience
- Engaging prospects and customers with a dedicated team for two-way conversations
- Resolving issues to deliver great experience
The company has reached 94 percent resolution rate with customer interactions through social media.
Click here to listen to this compelling case study on-demand.