Report: Social Insights on the Telecommunications Industry

“Can you hear me now? Good.” – Paul Marcarelli.

In 2001, Verizon released arguably the most memorable ad campaign in the telecommunication industry.

In the ad, Marcarelli plays the role of a Verizon test man whose job is to simply ensure that Verizon’s cell phone service always worked – of course, it did always work.

The release of the campaign coincided with a 10% increase in customers from 2001-2002 and another 15% increase by 2003.

Though quite memorable, the ad was effective because the message was clear: Verizon is dedicated to providing broad and quality cell phone service.

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Customers demand the best

Telecommunication businesses’ consumers are unique in that they demand a constantly functioning service.

For these businesses, the difficulty is not in just providing a high level of service but in providing a consistently high level of service – their successes go unnoticed while their failures are vehemently derided.

Most consumers only contact their phone service or cable providers to report an issue.

As such, it makes sense that when it comes to social media, providing an effective social customer care channel is the central focus for most businesses.

Yet too often that is the only focus for telecommunication brands.

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Insights on the Telecommunication Industry

In our latest report, Social Insights on the Telecommunication Industry, we outline the industry’s leaders in social media, examine key customer service issues, and briefly discuss some of the many other ways that telecommunication businesses can use social intelligence to support their business.

The following figure, taken from the report, provides some insight on the way telecommunication businesses interact with their audiences.

For the brand accounts analyzed, audiences accounted for 80% of the total conversation.

That’s unsurprising, audiences tweet at brands an average of 649 times a day while brands are only able to tweet 156.98 times on an average day.

Still, the telecommunication industry owns significantly more of their conversation than many others we’ve examined. Their larger share of the conversation stands testament to their ability to handle the constant incoming messages from their consumers.

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Expanding the possibilities

While it’s clear that most brands are effectively responding to a fair portion of their consumers’ tweets, it’s unclear whether or not brands are using that feedback to inform greater business decisions.

The following figure separates tweets directed at telecommunication brands’ social customer care accounts into several key categories.

Such analysis helps brands identify which issues are among the most common for their consumers. It seems that for most businesses, coverage issues are the most frequent complaint, while long wait times are generally the second biggest issue.

Separating the conversation as such can not only help social care teams quickly route specific problems to relevant teams, but it can also help inform product strategy and campaign development as to consumers’ most pressing concerns.

When telecommunication businesses implemented social customer service channels, it not only improved the quality of their service but also lowered the costs to provide that service.

Clearly, business leaders are open to the idea that social intelligence can improve the way their businesses run.

Yet many leaders aren’t yet aware of what those possibilities, outside of social customer service, might be.

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