The Zuora Community is a one-stop destination for our customer and partners to discover “just-in-time” solutions through peer-to-peer collaboration and easy access to knowledge documentation, contribute and vote on product ideas, learn about new product releases and grow in their Zuora expertise. ------------------------------------------ Company: Zuora Entry submitted by: Lana Lee (community manager) Community/Social Channels:  http://community.zuora.com; https://www.linkedin.com/company/zuora; https://www.linkedin.com/showcase/10543973; https://twitter.com/Zuora; https://twitter.com/ZuoraSupport; https://www.facebook.com/zuora Lithy category: Support Savings Titan   Business Goals The Zuora Community is a one-stop destination for our customer and partners to discover “just-in-time” solutions through peer-to-peer collaboration and easy access to knowledge documentation, contribute and vote on product ideas, learn about new product releases and grow in their Zuora expertise. Using our Zendesk integration with our Community, any non-Zuora community post that has no initial response within 48 hours will automatically create a Zendesk ticket. Once a Support agent answers the Zendesk ticket, the answer goes back to the Community as a response and is auto-selected as an accepted answer.  With nearly 40 support agents in our global Customer Support Services and Community team, we ensure that no issue is left unattended.   Zuora Customer Care Our Community uses Lithium’s topic discussion boards, blog, ideas, forums and user group features to engage with our customers. Our Topic Discussion Boards provide a collaborative space for customers to ask questions from Zuora staff and other users, gain credibility via kudos and accepted answers and share best practices. Our Announcements area informs customers about release notifications and product updates and allows Zuora to interact with our customers when they have questions. The Ideas forum is our most popular area because it allows our customers to interact with our Product Managers to potentially impact our product roadmap. We use User Groups to help connect users before events, network with each other locally and grant access to limited availability programs where customers can provide feedback to product managers on our latest releases and new features.   The Results Since our Community launched, the reduction of support tickets was seen immediately which gives us time us to focus more on training (product and leadership), create Community customer solution articles and reach out to other departments to share their expertise in the Community. Our Customer Solutions receive an average of 2500 views/month, saving the support organization around $500,000/month as each CSA view is a ticket deflected.   This has resulted in an annual savings of approximately $6M from 2016 to 2017. ... View more

Customer experience has always been Zuora Support’s focus and priority demonstrated by our 96% CSAT score. Before the Zuora Community, our customers were not able to easily find solutions to frequently-asked-questions that were asked in support tickets. ------------------------------------------ Company: Zuora Entry submitted by: Lana Lee (community manager) Community/Social Channels:  http://community.zuora.com; https://www.linkedin.com/company/zuora; https://www.linkedin.com/showcase/10543973; https://twitter.com/Zuora; https://twitter.com/ZuoraSupport; https://www.facebook.com/zuora Lithy category: Digital CX All-Star     Zuora: Digital Customer Experience Customer experience has always been Zuora Support’s focus and priority demonstrated by our 96% CSAT score. Before the Zuora Community, our customers were not able to easily find solutions to frequently-asked-questions that were asked in support tickets. Since our Community’s launch in 2016, we are now able to share all of our “Customer Solutions Articles” (CSAs) and make them publicly accessible for our customer’s reference and any continued discussions. Our customers seldom have any issues finding solutions in the Community as Google accounts for a referral average of 60% of all traffic, indicating that our SEO is excellent! Similarly, our CSAs have approximately 2500 views/month with rare cases of follow-up questions or requests for more information; every CSA read is a support ticket deflected! We also ensure that no answer goes ignored and with our Community’s Zendesk integration, any question without a first response in a specified time will auto-generate a Zendesk ticket. Very few posts go unanswered, but when they do generate a ticket, our integration allows agents to post the resolution in the ticket, back to the Community   The benefits of having both a community and a social media management platform Having a presence on social media allows the Zuora Support organization easily accessible to our customers. Now that everyone is mobile, it is important for us to be where our customers are; if they have difficulty finding a way to reach out to us, we are doing them a disservice and, in the end, they will likely go elsewhere to express their dissatisfaction. Our Twitter account (@ZuoraSupport) is used to promote Community content and we also receive tweets from Customers whose issues need addressing. One example is when a customer shared an incongruent in one of our reference documents via tweet. We asked him to share his discovery in the Community where we tagged the document owner who immediately followed up and fixed the issue.   The results Zuora Global Support maintains a 96% CSAT score and we have support coverage 24/7. With the Community, our Customer Solutions Articles (CSAs) address frequently-asked questions from customers. An average of 2500 CSAs are viewed in the Community each month and we can easily say that a ticket is deflected for each CSA read. Our strategy of posting common customer solutions in the Community is a win-win situation as it not only allows agents to work on more difficult issues, but it also saves our organization close to $500,000/month (an annual savings of approximately $6M from 2016 to 2017).     ... View more

The team is passionate about the conversations on social because every conversation matters. So, whether people contact us asking for the latest movies or are struggling with their broadband connection it is up to us to make it right.    ------------------------------------------ Company:  TalkTalk Entry submitted by:  Lorraine Fleming (Social Media Service Manager) Community: TalkTalk Twitter Lithy category:  Surprise & Delight       The Social Media Service Team   “Even in the familiar there can be surprise and wonder” (Tierney Gearon)   Sounds like a pretty good ethos to us and something that the Social team has used as its inspiration over the past year.   Contacting a Telecoms company might not be the most exciting way for customers to spend their time on social media, but that doesn’t mean we can’t make it a better experience for them.  Our Random Acts of Kindness (RAKs) initiative was developed to improve our customer experience and make customers feel valued.   The team is passionate about the conversations on social because every conversation matters. So, whether people contact us asking for the latest movies or are struggling with their broadband connection it is up to us to make it right.  By surprising and delighting customers with unexpected, personalized gifts, our RAKs, give them that special customer experience   The goal, strategy and tactics:       Our Random Acts of Kindness campaign was designed to enhance our customer care strategy and change the conversation on our social channels to create increased positive interactions with customers.  Primarily seen as platforms to raise customer service issues, we wanted to encourage people to follow us for a different reason and talk about the things that go well as well as those that don’t.   Launched on Twitter in January 2016, RAK’s are given to customers who contact us on Twitter and Facebook.  We don’t give them to all customers, it has to be something that stands out to the team, such as an unusual query, a complaint that has taken longer than expected to resolve or an amazing idea posted by one of our customers.    Here is how we do it: Customer gets in touch (query/complaint/awesome feedback) We help them by getting them the information they need, when they need it If the customer fits our criteria we use Lithium Social Media Management (SMM) for Service to look at customer’s profile and link into their social activity We take a look at their social feeds to learn more about them We send them a special personalized gift from us to create a special customer service experience Each gift we send is personal and handpicked to match the individual.  We look at their social feeds and get an idea of their interests, hobbies and family life and send something that we think will be special to them.  It is this level of personalisation that has really set this campaign apart from the rest.    The Results We have seen tangible results that demonstrate we’ve improved sentiment among customers who receive our RAKs.  We have seen increased satisfaction with our customer service and a decrease in customers raising further concerns or complaints.   Customers have shared positive feedback across their social channels expressing their delight at receiving one of our RAKs and have noted how we have made their experience with TalkTalk extra special. But don’t just take our word for it, we like to let our customers do the TalkTalking… https://twitter.com/evilcrumpet/status/839785469969825793/video/1 (watch video).   RAKS have also proven to be the gift that keeps on giving.  We have also seen continued engagement with some customers sharing posts a year down the line.   In addition, we have also seen increased peer-to-peer support and brand promotion.   We use Lithium SMM for Service to keep track of these conversations and build up historical information on our customers so we know what works and what doesn’t.  This has allowed us to identify people who are likely to become our promoters and influencers.   Taking a random sample of customers who have received a RAK (see graph below) we can identify a positive change in sentiment following a customer receiving a RAK and this is a pattern we have seen across the board.  This definite shift in sentiment demonstrates how RAKs have worked to meet our objectives to enhance our customer care strategy and create increased positive interaction with customers on social media.   Key: Red – negative tweet/post Amber – neutral tweet/post Green – positive tweet/post Black Line – shows where the RAK was sent   The same can be seen with the number of complaints.  Once customers have received a RAK no further complaints are raised, again we have seen this pattern across the board.   Number of complaints/issues raised once RAK has been received:     Our Random Acts of Kindness have proved to be an integral way to surprise and delight customers through our Social customer service.  They have: Promoted good customer care across our channels Built loyalty Increased peer to peer collaboration Changed the conversation Increased sentiment For us the campaign has been hugely successful because whilst customers may not remember what you have done they’ll always remember the way you make them feel.   #TheresNoBetterWayToBeTweeted ... 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