Wireless Companies are Waking Up to Social Care

Can you hear me now?

Mobile customers are making themselves heard in a big way. They’re demanding the same ease, simplicity, and speed of support resolution that they’re used to in ecommerce everywhere, and for major wireless carriers, this is a tall order.

Why?

Because even though they’re the backbone (no pun intended) of this modern, connected age, many of these brands find themselves burdened with vast legacy infrastructure, processes, and systems that make them slow to react.

Their sheer scale presents challenges. The top 10 wireless carriers have over 50% of market share and $1 trillion in revenue and to arrive there they’ve developed extensive product portfolios and armies of support engineers who make it difficult to provide customers with a quick seamless resolution.

Yet, react nimbly they must.

In their quest for speedy resolution consumers have moved the support conversation to social. This is quickly supplanting legacy channels like voice and email.

Customers switch based on responsiveness

According to Conversocial’s and Brandwatch’s report, wireless customers are practically shouting:

• The average wireless carrier receives 1,100 @ mentions each day on social media
• 28% of these customers who contact a brand never receive a response
• 50% of customers will consider switching carriers based on word of mouth on social media

And most brands’ responsiveness leaves something to be desired: Only 41% are considered responsive over social.

Whether brands embrace social or not, they will be talked about, and it’s incumbent upon their support organizations to join the conversation and prevent churn.

How are the nimblest wireless carriers reacting?

Among these brands, a few leaders recognize that they have no choice but to beef up their mobile support arms if they hope to compete.

One Conversocial client, a major UK wireless carrier, found that when customers rated their service interaction as “difficult,” they were 40% more likely to churn.

This led the brand to seek out those channels that customers found easiest and this led them to social and messaging apps. In fact, Converoscial’s report found that Customers rated social care 4x easier than voice and 2x easier than email support.

When resolutions are easier, customers are happier and churn is down.

Top performers have adopted a proactive approach

But, the most successful wireless brands realize that it’s about more than just listening. A conversation has two parts, and they’re out there talking as well as listening with a proactive support approach. Whereas before social, brands had to wait for issues to boil over and customers to call them, their social care agents can now scan the universe of social mentions of their brand and engage those customers.

Brands are people too

A switch to social support is not without its challenges. Wireless companies and their support agents are also finding that they must adopt a more human approach.

Social is the arena where consumers increasingly turn for connection with each other and they desire similarly authentic interactions with brands. The great opportunity is that brands can humanize themselves and build relationships and yet the great risk is that they must develop entirely new guidelines around what support agents can and cannot say.

This hectic new #SocialFirst world is fraught with both risk and opportunity for wireless carriers, but one thing is certain: the choice to evolve in this direction is not theirs to make. Consumers have gotten a taste of the ease and simplicity of support here, and they want more.

To see more, and how 25 of the world’s largest wireless carriers rank on Twitter for Social Customer Service, download Conversocial’s Global Wireless Benchmark Report!