Several new customer service initiatives were launched in 2016. Mid Q1 we created a Quality Assurance (QA) program for customer interactions, and escalations from our social space.
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Company: Frontier Communications
Entry submitted by: Beau Mills (Manager, Social Media Customer Care)
Social Channels: @FrontierCorp, Frontier Communications Facebook Page
Lithy category: Social Support Champion
Frontier Communications Corporation is a leader in providing communications services to urban, suburban, and rural communities in 29 states. Frontier offers a variety of services to residential customers over its fiber-optic and copper networks, including video, high-speed internet, advanced voice, and Frontier Secure® digital protection solutions. Frontier’s video offerings include Frontier FiOS® and Vantage TV by Frontier™ with 100 percent HD picture quality, Total Home DVR, instant channel change, enhanced search, Video on Demand, and much more. Business Edge™ offers communications solutions to small, medium, and enterprise businesses.
Several new customer service initiatives were launched in 2016.
Mid Q1, Frontier created a Quality Assurance (QA) program for customer interactions, and escalations from our social space. This QA program has helped to create a more uniform customer experience, and has proven to be invaluable when coaching existing team members and training new employees.
As of Q2, Frontier’s social media expanded support to a 24-hour model. Previously, there was no support present over night or over holidays. This change immediately improved response rates, SLA, and the customer experience as a whole.
After our acquisition of new territories in CA, FL, and TX, our customer demographics shifted, and Frontier now has a higher demand for Spanish language support. To meet this need, we created an additional Facebook page, Frontier Communications Latino, and our Community Management team and Account Management team expanded to provide Spanish language support.
Throughout 2016, Frontier began to support other social channels beyond our own Facebook and Twitter pages. Initially we began to reach out to customers on Facebook and Twitter outside of our own pages. Eventually we expanded to external sites including NextDoor.com, PissedConsumer.com, ConsumerAffiars.com, and DSLreports.com.
During 2016, we also revamped several of our existing pages. Our @AskFrontier channel became a 100% dedicated to support, not only for responding to customer tweets, but for educational content regarding common trouble areas (how to read a bill, tech troubleshooting, etc), and for area outage notifications and updates. Similarly, our YouTube channel was also refreshed, using the same insights drawn from our trending data gathered via Lithium Social Media Management (SMM) for Service, we created new how-to and DIY videos for customer support.
At the end of Q4, Frontier also launched a Customer Satisfaction survey via Twitter. Results within 2016 are preliminary, however this will be a useful source of feedback for 2017.
The most important customer issue for 2016 is the customer experience with Frontier.
We sought to make Frontier’s social media a true “one stop shop” and the premier channel for customer support that customers prefer over traditional channels like phone or chat support. All of our 2016 initiatives furthered this goal by improving quality, scope, and hours of support.
Additionally, our support does not end with our response directly in the social space. Should a customer need more hands-on attention, our back line support team, called Account Managers, provides specialized and dedicated support for more complex issues. Unlike the traditional support channels, where a customer works with an agent on a single contact, our Account Managers maintain contact with customers until the issue is fully resolved to the customer’s satisfaction.
Our results
Due to several of our initiatives in 2016, many of our customer satisfaction metrics have improved greatly. Since shifting to a 24/7 support model, our Average Response Time has fallen from several hours, down to approximately 15 minutes.
Our SLA has also improved greatly due to initiatives. At our low point of the year, 79% of responses were meeting SLA, however by Q4 we were seeing a solid 19% improvement with a consistent 98% of responses meeting SLA.
Frontier’s Social space has also grown to be a customer support channel of choice. After reaching a business as usual stasis after Frontier’s acquisition of new territories in April, our call deflections have settled in at nearly double the pre-acquisition volumes.
While our incoming conversation volumes were up post-acquisition, our level of Escalations to our Account managers actually returned to near pre-acquisition levels, once we returned to a business as usual pattern.
Frontier Social was also mentioned in the news in 2016. This happened during the early days of our transition in the newly acquired territories of CA, FL, and TX; while customers were frustrated at this time, Frontier’s Social team was cited multiple times for its responsiveness and tireless efforts to support our customers in the Social space.
Beyond the metrics, our customers frequently express their satisfaction with us directly on our Social pages.
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