digital care @ Virgin Media

Alex Brown

Who are we?

Virgin Media

The UK’s largest cable provider with 10m customers Second biggest ISP in the UK Second biggest Pay TV provider in UK UK’s largest (and original) MVNO 12,500 employees

The biggest Virgin company

Digital Care at Virgin Media

Early DaysEarly Days

Setup Twitter as a contact channel in December 2008 Dedicated resource deployed May 2009 – The Twitter ‘Tweam’! Community Forums

Other channels – Facebook (March 2011), YouTube on way Formalising processes Industrialising operation Growing resource – doubling size of the team

Strategic self care Marketing Additional channels and resource Monitoring & case management tools

The PresentThe Present

The FutureThe Future

“The best tweeting ISP in the UK”

The UK’s most followed telco on Twitter

The story of @virginmedia

A typical day …

A tale of organic growth

2009 2010 2011

Q1 Q2 Q3 Q4 Q1 Q2 Q3 Q4 Jan Feb Mar Apr

20000

17500

15000

12500

10000

7500

5000

2500

Monthly Tweets from VM

Followers

Growth due to proactive

nature & service reputation

30-50 new followers daily

Monthly tweets growing –

first contact route for some

Increasing scope of help

and expanding hours of

coverage

Not marketed as channel

Growing through word of mouth

What we do and how we do it

Respond &Recognise

Respond &Recognise

• Proactive and Reactive customer engagement• Manage at first contact if possible• Promote self care channels

• Take offline with details• Agent ensures issue resolved to customer satisfaction• Empowerment to make customer happy

• Weather vane for new issues• Feedback to agents, techs etc• Product/process improvement• Productivity

CaseManagement

CaseManagement

Learning &Reporting

Learning &Reporting

Wordcloud of posts from @virginmedia

It’s OK to say ‘sorry’Source: www.wordle.net

Billy

Being Human

Customer ‘Ahoy, My landline is down so I can't make any calls. What’s happening is this: I pick up the phone, the dial tone is there, then it fades away to silence over about 1 second. I hang up the phone, pick up again, same deal. Can communicate via email/twitter/skype please help! Matt’

Tweam ‘Good day Me Heartie, Looking into your telephone issue it isn't something that's affecting your area, so we're going to have to look a bit deeper. Could I ask if you've tried using a telephone? If you haven't is there anyway you could give that a whirl, I don't want to be wasting your time with a technician visit if it's not needed. Look forward to hearing you soon cap'n =)’

Customer ‘Yo Ho Billy, I hoisted up a sail on the ARRRRRRRRR virgin media support forum, so I did, so I did. A buccaneer by the name of Ray has signalled a privateer to come aboard on the 6th day, here’s hoping he fixes me magic talky box. YAR’

Tweam ‘Hi Matt, Just checkin' in t' see how your services be behavin', did our privateer do everythin' required or does he needs to walk the plank? Billy’

Customer ‘Ahoy Billy, Yer privateer lined his sights square at sabotage, seems a mercenary not 6 sunrises past gone fiddlin' where he ought not to and crossed me riggin with a rival clan over yonder. with a merry belly laugh yer fella had me sail hoisted quicker than ye can say 'Avast the pigs fallen overboard‘ may his bounty be plentiful and his cup never dry, and so say all of us. YAR

Great customer feedback

Fostering advocacy

Customers are influencers too

Harnessing customer feedback

Spreading the gospel

Some keep us busier than others …

Influencing the influencers

… but are always happy to say thanks

Influencing the influencers

“A more exciting place to live”

facebook.com/virginmedia

Also organic, but new

Launched March 2011 for help

V Fest, Shorts etc already present

Marketing/Brand Engagement focused

Social home of Virgin Media

Fix, Navigate, Excite

Engaging content (TiVo etc)

Customer service issues dealt with in

public if able to. Account specific

issues taken offline to e-mail.Jan Feb Mar Apr May Jun Q3

5000

4000

3000

2000

1000

500

36334391 4704

50005400

SignificantIncrease in

Lifetime Likes

Reduction in Lifetime

Unsubscribers

Forecast

‘Likes’

Primarily a marketing channel

What’s next?

TechnologyTechnology

Workflow management Case management Monitoring

Self Care Brand consideration Early warning system Sales

Channel awareness Improving engagement – more likes and followers

OpportunitiesOpportunities

MarketingMarketing

Thank You!

Source: www.dilbert.com

Alex Brown

Head of Customer Experience, Virgin Media

London, UK

Twitter: @SockedKiwi

Blog: www.alex-brown.co.uk

E-mail: alex.brown@virginmedia.co.uk