Company: Vodafone Germany
Entry submitted by: Sebastian (VF_Sebastian) Social Media Project Coordinator
Community: Vodafone Community (https://forum.vodafone.de/)
Lithy category: Marketing Champion
Vodafone Germany is a telecommunication company based in Germany, with more than 10,000 employees and its headquarters in Dusseldorf. It is a part of the Vodafone Group, amongst the largest telecommunication companies in the world. Currently more than 34 million people are making use of Vodafone services in Germany.
Regarding our service promise, we are providing an individual service support, anytime and anywhere, to our customers. In case of concerns the customer is able to get in touch with Vodafone channels 24 hours a day and 7 days a week. Due to different, individual customer requirements Vodafone pursues a multichannel strategy. Customers have the choice between different service channels such as email, chat etc. With the increasing relevance of Internet-based communication new channels are gaining a growing importance. Besides the other well-known social media networks, communities offer significant opportunities in terms of service quality, brand reputation and cost reduction. Customers have the opportunity to reveal and exchange experiences and often find an answer to their question in the community. Accordingly the portion of self-service is increased.
Since 2012 the community is an established Vodafone service channel. Vodafone Group awarded all Community Agents with our global internal employee “Hero Award” for effective work performance. The award was ceremonially passed in London.
Marketing campaign
An important factor for a community is an active user base. To encourage our users we developed a community model allowing active users to jump to various new user levels depending on the number of posts submitted, Kudos collected and their solution comments. After the registration users climb up to a Super-User role in six steps. This strategy creates an intensive relationship between community and users. In addition Super-Users appreciate a special reputation within the community. In consequence of performance Super-Users stand out from the community. Currently our Vodafone community has more than 30 active Super-Users. Above all, Users consider their nomination as a pleasant experience. A Super-User profile reflects Vodafone’s goals of customer satisfaction.
To also bring this appreciation to the real world we invite our Super-Users to a yearly event to celebrate the cooperation between agents and Super-Users, where they get to know each other. A Super-User event is a solid part of the community loyalty strategy. For this purpose, Vodafone implemented an extra wild card, which allows one user to participate without a Super-User status. Within 6 months one of the Wild-Card-Participant has achieved Super-User status, because the person was so excited of this elaborate event.
Super-Users are also involved in internal events and represent the customer's perspective beyond the community. Super-Users are often product experts with deeply knowledge. Vodafone Product Managers value neutral customer feedback. In terms of strategic development we can improve our service continuously.
Users appreciate posts from Super-Users as it is considered as authentic customer feedback. This year one of the Super-User wrote his 20.000 posts. A lot of users congratulate this Super-User for his impressive performance.
Furthermore Super-Users support Vodafone Social Media Team to administrate the eforum (e.g. close/move threads, mark answers as accepted). It is also common that they support us maintaining the e forum rules beyond moderator’s (VF employees) online presence.
As a part of the Kabel Deutschland merger, Vodafone also invited Kabel Deutschland agents to get to know the new team as well as Vodafone Super-Users. Each individual is essential and is part of the whole.
To sum up Vodafone Super-Users are helping us to keep our service promise “Your personal service. We are only happy if you are.“
