customer success national domestic violence hotline ......the ndvh and loveisrespect channels—now...

2013

CUSTOMER SUCCESS

National Domestic Violence Hotline and LoveIsRespectEngaging Abuse Victims with a Familiar Channel

2013 LivePerson, Inc.© 1

CUSTOMER SUCCESS National Domestic Violence Hotline

When the National Domestic Violence Hotline (NDVH) created a website called LoveIsRespect to focus on victims of teen dating abuse, the organization knew that its target demographic would prefer live

chat as a communication channel. After deploying a comprehensive LivePerson solution in 2011, advocates—for both

the NDVH and LoveIsRespect channels—now conduct approximately 8,000 live chat conversations per month—

25 percent of those via mobile devices—and the channel boasts an 80 percent user satisfaction rate. Because of this

success, the NDVH recently launched a live chat service for its main hotline, and other nonprofits around the country are

interested in a similar solution.

In 1994, U.S. President Bill Clinton signed the Violence Against Women Act, authored by then-Senator Joe Biden, now the country’s vice

president. The law provided new resources for the investigation and prosecution of violent crimes against women and established the National

Domestic Violence Hotline (NDVH) to connect women in crisis with the advice and resources they need. Since the phone lines opened in 1996,

more than three million women have received help from advocates staffing the organization’s Texas call center.

Services were initially provided almost entirely by phone, but the importance of the NDVH’s web presence grew quickly. “Online services were

really kind of an afterthought when I started here, but our websites are now the anchors of what we provide,” says Brian Pinero, director of Digital

Services for NDVH. “Our blogs and static content provide an entryway into the resources we offer.”

The demographics of those seeking help have also evolved over 17 years. “In 2005 and 2006, we began to notice that more young people were

contacting us, and we recognized that their situations were different from our adult callers,” Pinero says. “Many lived at home with their parents,

away from the abusive partner. They often needed more basic dating advice. And they tended to communicate more through texting and live

chat than by phone—whether doing their homework, having fun with friends, or shopping.”

,0008CHAT CONVERSATIONS

PER MONTH



Addressing the unique needs of youthAfter a lot of strategic planning and fundraising, the NDVH and Liz Claiborne teamed up in 2007 to launch

loveisrespect.org, the National Teen Dating Abuse Helpline. “The site is targeted at ages 13 to 24,” Pinero

relates. “The website contains advice on developing dating skills, how to identify a good relationship, and

how to know whether one is a victim of abuse.” Prominently displayed on the homepage of the site are

three options for contacting an advocate: phone, text, or live chat.

Live chat was included at the launch of the new site, and it has always been the most common way that

teens contact the organization’s specially trained advocates. One reason is the relative comfort of live chat

versus speaking with someone verbally. “We like to talk about the ‘invisible wall’,” Pinero says. “It’s much

more comfortable to throw things over that wall and see how they’re taken on the other end, rather than

face the embarrassment factor that comes with talking with someone out loud.”

Finding the right live chat platformDespite its popularity, the LoveIsRespect live chat channel had its problems in the early years. “We originally

had an on-premise chat application on a local server,” recalls Wade Treichler, communications director for

NDVH. “We had all manner of issues, and it was just hard to provide services through that platform.”

One problem was that the prior solution did not deal well with increased volume. “We often get spikes in

activity after we do a media promotion on a channel like MTV,” Treichler explains. “The old system would

sometimes crash when volume surged, and in a few cases, we lost contact with people in crisis—which was

unacceptable to us. When the solution worked, we could only see five users at a time and had no visibility

into how many were waiting in the queue.” The system also lacked the tools that would help move it beyond

being just a basic chat solution—the ability to analyze chat conversations, target visitors for proactive chat,

and conduct live chat on mobile devices.

In 2011, LoveIsRespect migrated its live chat services to the cloud-based LiveEngage platform from

LivePerson and concurrently launched a text messaging service. “The experience was night and day for us,”

Pinero recalls. “Suddenly, we could see at a glance how many people were in the queue, and agents could

chat with as many users concurrently as they could handle. We could analyze chat conversations for

a variety of purposes, and we could track volume and usage statistics. It was groundbreaking for us.”

The LiveEngage deployment has grown with volume, and NDVH currently holds 12 concurrent licenses. All

of the seats are staffed with advocates during the busiest times—after planned media promotions, during

lunch hours, and in the evening. “It’s really easy to tweak our staffing levels based on volume reports from

the LiveEngage platform,” Treichler remarks.

“”

“We noticed that more young people were contacting us, and we recognized that their situations

were different from our adult callers.” – Brian Pinero, Director, Digital Services, NDVH

National Domestic Violence Hotline / LoveIsRespectNDVH Launched: 1996

LoveIsRespect Launched: 2007

Industry: Social Services

Contact Volume (NDVH and LoveIsRespect):

• Phone: 23,000+ monthly• Live Chat: 8,000+ monthly• Text Message: 1,000+ monthly



Optimizing live chat servicesNot long after deploying LiveEngage, Pinero and Treichler attended LivePerson’s 2012 Aspire conference

and came back with a lot of ideas on how to improve processes and leverage the full capabilities of the

platform. “We were able to see how best practices for private sector and sales-focused uses of live chat

could be pivoted to a nonprofit model,” Treichler explains.

One result of the conference for NDVH is a greater use of proactive chat using a rules-based protocol.

“The page entitled ‘Is this abuse?’ is one of our busiest pages, but users only stay for 30 seconds on average,”

Pinero notes. “The page entitled, ‘Leaving an abusive relationship’ is one of our least-visited pages, but

people stay for three to six minutes. Now, when agents are available immediately, users who spend a lot

of time on these pages get an invitation to chat. That’s really important as it often takes courage for young

people to initiate a conversation on their own.”

The Aspire event also motivated Pinero and Treichler to make greater use of the enrichment analytics

capabilities of the LiveEngage platform to discover patterns and trends in chat conversations. “One of the

biggest benefits is for pushing out digital content,” Treichler asserts. “Anytime we see a topic that’s trending

in chat conversations, we put out a blog on the subject and promote it on social media. Teens tend to be

very attuned to pop culture trends, and being current on those helps drive traffic to our site and provides

a platform for people to engage with us.”

Embracing mobile usersEnrichment data from LiveEngage is also used in ongoing agent training and was crucial in a recently

launched redesign of the NDVH website, which has a mobile-friendly, responsive design. “Our target

demographic is at the forefront of the trend toward mobile,” Pinero says. “We need to optimize their

experience so that they will engage with us wherever they are.”

Earlier in 2013, the team added mobile live chat as an additional channel for users alongside the existing web

chat and text messaging services. The LivePerson Customer Success organization worked with the NDVH

team to configure the mobile live chat deployment and helped develop training modules for advocates when

they are chatting with individuals using mobile devices. “Chatting with someone who is on a mobile device is

different than chatting with someone who is doing so on a desktop or laptop,” Treichler points out.

The website refresh also features an expanded library of content, based partially on topics most commonly

raised during chat conversations. “We hope that we can keep the chat and phone lines lines open for people

in crisis by empowering many users to answer their questions through self service,” says Pinero. ”But we don’t

want to discourage direct engagement for those who need it—whether by live chat, phone, or text.”

“”

Suddenly, we could see at a glance how many people were in the queue. We could analyze chat conversations for a variety of purposes.

It was groundbreaking for us. – Brian Pinero, Director, Digital Services, NDVH

The Challenge• Make services available to

users in channels with which they’re comfortable

• Proactively reach out to web-site users who may be victims of violence

The SolutionEngagement Model: Proactive live chat on teen dating and domestic violence resource sites

Under the Hood: LiveEngage platform with rules-based targeting on mobile-optimized websites

Customer Success: Implementation services, training, and ongoing support; deployment of mobile chat

The Results8,000+ live chats conducted monthly via NDVH and LoveIsRespect websites

Over 90,000 total chat conversations since 2011

25% of live chat conversations on mobile devices

80% customer satisfaction rate for live chat channel

Recognition from many nonprofits for thought leadership in digital engagement


42013 LivePerson, Inc.©

The NDVH’s live chat services from LivePerson are also embedded in a mobile app launched in conjunction

with a partner organization, the One Love Foundation. “The iOS and Android apps do safety assessment,”

Pinero explains. “This allows users to get an outsider opinion of the potential risk that they’re in. If they

see they’re at risk, they can reach our live chat services directly through the app.” NDVH is considering

deploying additional live chat-enabled mobile apps in the near future.

Expanding the scopeLive chat was so successful at LoveIsRespect that the NDVH team recently added it as an option on

thehotline.org, the website aimed at adults above the age of 25. “After seven years, the age group we have

been serving at LoveIsRespect is aging out of that demographic, but they still prefer to communicate by live

chat,” Treichler notes. “We have an idea of what our traffic will be, but we don’t actually know for sure and

are excited to see what happens.” He adds that the cloud-based LiveEngage platform will make it easy to

scale the service to what the volume turns out to be.

The LivePerson Customer Success team was a critical part of this deployment, and provides ongoing

training and support that has helped the NDVH optimize its LiveEngage deployment. “Working with them

has always been awesome,” Pinero says enthusiastically. “They were incredibly helpful during this rollout

in making sure that both our websites have the correct chat experience—each with its own rules, push

content, and skill sets for advocates. The Customer Success team is an incredible ally as we continue to

grow with the platform.”

The team is already noting differences in peak volume between LoveIsRespect and thehotline.org. “The

lunch timeframe is big for our older users,” Pinero relates. “We had one middle-aged woman who said,

‘The only time I have when he’s not controlling my phone or following my texts and chats is when I’m at

the campus library over lunchtime.’ Giving our users the ability to engage with us over any device at any

time is critically important.”

Now that this launch and the new LoveIsRespect website are complete, the NDVH team is starting to plan

future initiatives. One possible project is the addition of Click to Call on the LiveEngage platform, which

would enable an audio conversation through the website. “Our vision is for a smooth path of escalation

from a text message or a rich web session, to a live chat session, and maybe eventually to a voice call

if things are more serious,” Pinero says. “So we are looking at how best to integrate everything for a

seamless experience.”

Sharing best practicesOther organizations are taking note of the success of the NDVH in digital engagement, and this has

created the opportunity for the team to expand its impact by sharing its depth of experience. “Early

on, we started getting calls from other nonprofits around the country, asking, ‘How can we apply this?’”

Treichler recalls. “This is happening more and more, and we’re finding that it is taking a lot of staff time

to field the inquiries and host people who want to observe our operations. So we are developing an

assessment of digital and organizational readiness that can be used by other nonprofits.”

“

”

We were able to see how best practices for private sector, sales-focused uses

of live chat could be pivoted to a

nonprofit model.– Wade Treichler,

Communications Director, NDVH


“One of the things that we learned very early on is that you cannot apply the same practices for chat and

texting that we use in phone advocacy,” Pinero adds. The same was discovered for mobile live chat when

it was rolled out. Pinero explains that advocates had to learn to be more forward with people to assess

the problem quickly, and give answers that fit within the character limit of a text message. “ We now have

the opportunity to share these best practices with other groups, he notes. For assistance in training its

advocates on best practices using chat and texting versus the phone, NDVH engaged the LivePerson

Customer Success organization.

Many lives touchedAdvocates for the two NDVH websites now conduct more than 8,000 chat conversations per month, and

have chatted with over 90,000 visitors since LiveEngage was deployed two years ago. Over the past year,

60 percent of conversations on LoveIsRespect were conducted through live chat, and 25 percent of chat

conversations have been conducted on mobile devices. “Chat conversations on LoveIsRespect average 13

to 15 minutes, but we expect the length on thehotline.org to be somewhat longer,” Pinero notes.

Post-conversation surveys sent through the LiveEngage platform reflect an 80 percent customer

satisfaction rate for the live chat channel, higher than with any other channel. “I think one reason for this

is that we can really provide more information through chat than we can over the phone, and visitors

can refer back to that information at any time” Pinero says. The results help NDVH to easily fulfill its

requirements for various grants, and the survey results are useful for ongoing advocate training as well.

And while agents can field more chat conversations in an hour than phone calls, this is not an important

consideration for NDVH. “It is not about call deflection; it’s about an escalation path,” Pinero asserts.

“There are many victims of dating violence who would never pick up the phone, even if it was the only

channel available. We need to be able to say, ‘Can we meet you where you are?’”

For people in crisis, such engagement may very well save their lives.

2013 LivePerson, Inc.©

About LivePersonLivePerson, Inc. (NASDAQ: LPSN) offers a cloud-based platform that enables businesses to proactively connect in real-time with their customers via chat, voice, and content delivery at the right time, through the right channel, including websites, social media, and mobile devices. This “intelligent engagement” is driven by real-time behavioral analytics, producing connections based on a true understanding of business objectives and customer needs. LivePerson is headquartered in New York City with offices in San Francisco, Atlanta, Tel Aviv, London, and Melbourne.

ContactLivePerson, Inc. T: 212.991.1794 475 Tenth Ave F: 212.609.4233 5th Floor [email protected] New York, NY 10018 www.liveperson.com

“

”

There are many victims of dating

violence who would never pick up the

phone, even if it was the only channel

available.– Brian Pinero, Director,

Digital Services, NDVH

customer success national domestic violence hotline ......the ndvh and loveisrespect channels—now...

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