When Phil Blum was selected to lead the social media arm of TWC's customer care operations in 2010, the company was unsure of the value of assigning customer service agents to monitor Facebook and Twitter. With 15 million residential customers, the vast majority of whom use traditional support channels like voice and chat, social media felt like a mere drop in the bucket. But Blum, who came from an extensive call center background, was determined to bring high-quality service experience to customers on the Web. “We understand that there are a lot of people that come to us via social media because that's the way they like to interact, ” says Blum. “We also understand that it's a highly visible support channel, unlike voice or chat.” Blum's team was given increased latitude and empowered to reach out to customers in the social sphere and ensure their needs were met.
Blum started with a three-person team, using Radian6 to engage with customers on Twitter and Facebook. “Radian6 is a great listening tool, but it's not the most efficient engagement tool, ” he says. Radian6 also lacked the tracking and analytical components Blum needed to report on his team's progress and monitor his agents' performance, which were critical to ensuring his team could scale to address the ever-increasing volume of TWC customers seeking support via social media.
Blum shared his concerns with Carter Calle, who manages TWC's alternative care strategies. Together, they made the decision to switch to Lithium Response. “We really liked the product, we really liked the team, and we really liked the culture at Lithium, ” says Calle.
Solution
After only a few months using Lithium Response, Blum grew his team to 10 agents and saw noticeable increases in their productivity and ability to respond to customers. Instead of using a patchwork of Radian6, Excel spreadsheets, e-mail, Facebook, and Post-It notes, the social customer care team now has one streamlined platform in which to identify messages that need a response, manage social conversations to resolution, and gather data on their performance. “Bringing Lithium Response to bear on the problem helped us to very quickly organize our efforts: we turned tweets into cases, the cases could be assigned and tracked and reported on, and that gave us insight into how many people it takes to manage the volume effectively, ” says Calle.