How O2’s Gurus Define

the Rulebook on Delivering Social

Customer Service at Scale
“ Joining the O2 “I always do my best
Gurus is a big to make sure the
career step up.” customer is satisfied.”
Petr Anička
“I‘m most happy when “It‘s all about having
I can positively change fun and seeing
a customer‘s opinion.” great results.”
Renča Petr
2––3
Table of Contents

4 About O2
5 The Challenge
6 The Solution
7 The Technology
8 The Results
10 The O2 Guru
11 The Anatomy of the Perfect Interaction
12 Why we Love Brand Embassy
13 Testimonials
15 How you can win customers and influence people
 A sea of screens. Voices raised,
hands in the air. Lights down.
It’s showtime…

That’s how it feels every day for the rockstar

O2 social customer service team as they log in
to Brand Embassy to engage with the more than
4 million O2 customers in the Czech Republic.

With Brand Embassy, the rockstar “O2 Gurus”

(as they’re known) never miss a beat, and have
become synonymous with exemplary customer
service delivered via human-centric engagement
at scale.

O2 has increased the volume of inbound customer

requests by more than 300% for the last five
consecutive years. What’s more, they’ve done
that with the same core team of seven people;
that’s a 0% attrition rate.

Oh, and just like real rockstars, they threw out the
rule book on traditional corporate silos, integrating
KPIs and targets with marketing, sales, and even
the PR team. Talk about an efficient bunch!
4––5
About O2
O2 Czech Republic is the largest telco
operator in the Czech Republic, operating
more than six million fixed and mobile
lines for more than 4,000,000 customers
across the country.
736

58,600

163,000

164,000

247,000

432,000

700%
Since 2012, inbound
customer requests have
grown by 700%, from
just 58,000 requests,
to 432,000. O2‘s active
social community
exceeds more than
286,000.
2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016

O2 Social 726,000 2,500 286,000 10.9 8.5

Customer Service requests and responses connections million words million words
in Numbers: mentions from O2 gurus on social sent from sent from
since 2011. every week. media customers gurus.
The Challenge
The global telco market is fiercely competitive and customers are
increasingly connected, engaged and empowered. Telco operators need
a competitive advantage to stand out. For O2, that was customer service.
On an operational level, that meant identifying the sweet spot between
proven cost efficiency and high customer satisfaction.

Specific challenges
prior to adopting the Brand
Embassy platform:

Manual processes and systems Lack of customer insights

Agents were manually searching out Almost impossible to keep track of
brand mentions across all digital important comments and influencers,
channels. and to ensure that all tickets were
resolved in a satisfactory manner.

All service was delivered Volume of incoming demand

on native platforms was increasing on social media
There were no synergies between More and more customers were
channels and no way to follow the engaging with O2 via digital channels,
customer from one platform to another. threatening to overwhelm the team.
6––7
The Solution
A unique team of social customer service agents, called the
“O2 Gurus”, was created, whose job was to elevate the role
and value of O2 customer service. O2 began to use Brand
Embassy in 2011 to meet the increasing number of customer
interactions taking place online, by:

Developing Connecting with Identify opportunities

the O2 service communities of buyers to engage with influen­
community on a human level cers and detractors

Through Brand Embassy, Brand Embassy’s Built-in Analyzing the volume

O2 was able to connect
their existing O2
community located on
their website, with all other
digital channels such as
Facebook, Twitter, YouTube
and Instagram. With all
conversations taking
place on one seamless
workflow, the Gurus could
effortlessly keep on top of
the growing O2 community.
CRM provides customer of keyword traffic helps
insights including the O2 Guru to prepare
conversation history, for and respond to key
sentiment analysis topics faster and more
and customer profiles, accurately, and to identify
and allows O2 Gurus to opportunities to upsell new
deliver an impactful first products and services.
impression. Smart routing
ensures that customers
are matched with the
perfect agent to address
their needs.
The Technology
For the first time, O2 had all their existing
communities and social media channels
connected. With Brand Embassy, customer
requests are automatically routed to the best
agents, CRM profiles help agents understand
who they are talking to, and sophisticated
KPI and trend reports help management
make data-driven decisions. O2 particularly
appreciate the following additional features:

Mark influencers
> Within the Brand Embassy Built-in CRM, the ability to mark
and prioritize key influencers and detractors so that they
are handled with care and attention

Real­time communication
> The speed and efficiency of the Brand Embassy system
allows forms and social messages to be handled like real-
time direct messaging.

Social listening
> Keeping track of O2 mentions across millions of websites
and forums, as well as keeping an eye on the activity of
competition.

Insights and reports

> Quickly and effortlessly proving the ROI of digital
customer service as well as keep tabs on important KPIs
and SLA’s.
8––9
The Results
O2 saw immediate results from the Guru
customer service platform, related to
three hard KPIs in particular:

70% 300% 90%

“I always try
Time Volume Quality to look at the
70% reduction Increased number 90% of customers were situation from
of response time. of incoming service satisfied with quality both sides and
demands by 300% on of care.
average during 5 years.
empathise.”
Social Media department O2 Source: O2 5 year anniversary video Social Media department O2 Jarda

An additional outcome
was a dramatic increase
in the “Share of Voice” Facebook
Agents proactively offering additional
vs competitors, types of commentary and content
especially on: around key topics such as lifestyle,
technology and innovation.
Over time, the Facebook channels
was used more and more as a sales
tool, announcing new products and
services and incentivising customers.
YouTube
The Gurus started to make additional
video content such as innovation
announcement videos and brand-
personality pieces, resulting in new
conversation pieces and the ability to
deepen customer relationships.
Instagram
Customer were very surprised
and delighted to hear from O2 on
Instagram, as they were not expecting
it. The medium allowed the Gurus
to provide service, support and
engagement through images.

USE CASE:
Customer Service
O2 moved to provide more proactive
service and engagement and
meeting inbound demand, powered
by the Brand Embassy Built-in CRM
which allowed for human-centric
engagement at scale.
USE CASE:
Sales
O2 were able to switch from a reactive
service platform to one where the O2 Gurus
were empowered to upsell customers and
offer them new products directly within the
service ticket. Direct selling via facebook
was launched for specific products
targeting Generation Y.
De­Siloing
“Social care is
USE CASE: something that
PR & Communications builds our brand.”
The social customer service team
started to cooperate more closely with
the PR & Communications in order to
manage sensitive stores such as price
increases, free-to-paid services, as
well as to celebrate company success
and positive news.
USE CASE:
Marketing & BTL
O2 quickly realised that
When O2 bought the rights for the social customer service, and
Euro Cup, the O2 Gurus supported the Brand Embassy platform,
the campaign by engaging with
had application beyond the
key customers and influencers. It
contact centre. Soon after,
also helped the that O2 Gurus were
the traditional silos of Sales,
passionate football fans and the
passion was easily felt!
Marketing and Customer
Service began to break down,
with the result that the O2
Gurus were helping to drive
other company KPIs related
to revenue increases, brand
health and media relations.
10––11
The O2 Guru* blueprint for success
In the past five years, the O2 guru has fundamentally improved the
customer experience by increasing efficiency and impacting customer
satisfaction, while maintaining a 0% attrition rate. For call center
managers, that’s almost unbelievable. Over time, they have re-written
the rule book on social engagement, summarised in three key ways:

A freedom to improvise
1 The social customer service Guru is trusted to handle each “Working in the
customer interaction with confidence and resourcefulness, social media space
which in many cases can look and feel very different from
is rich. You never
a call center or live chat interaction.
know what‘s around
the next corner.”
A drive to be the best Renča
2 Within O2 at least, the Gurus are seen as the pinnacle of career
progression. Agents must prove their worth in the call centre,
before moving to Live Chat and finally progressing into the
social customer service team.

Courage to be human
3 Engaging with a customer on a public forum with everyone
watching takes guts, more so when you put your own
personality out there and photo on the discussion board.

* Guru A popular expert or authority

/guru/ Synonyms: expert, professional, master pundit etc.
The Anatomy
of a Perfect Interaction
A perfect customer interaction not only resolves
a customer interaction, it proactively drives
customer value-creation and retention.

Understanding
(to resolve the
customer’s
service request)

Empathy Incentive
(to connect with (to drive value
the customer) creation)

The Perfect Precision Passion Personalisation Humility Handling Humanity

Getting to the crux A passion for helping Wherever possible, The agent under- The agent handles The agent, like
Customer
of the customer a customer comes the interaction stands that they the conversation in the customer, is
Interaction looks request as quickly across in the way should be persona- are here to help a professional manner a human, and that
like the following: as possible with the that the agent lised and genuine / to resolve the and doesn’t allow means dealing with
goal to resolve the commits themselves unique. customer’s request, the conversation the customer with
question accurately to ensuring the even if it might to degrade or harm respect, humour,
and painlessly. customer is satisfied. seem unusual or the relationship or empathy and all the
unreasonable. customer value. emotional drivers that
makes us humans.
12––13
Why We Love
Brand Embassy
“ We love your approach to customer
care and really appreciate that you
often ask our team for feedback
in order to meet our need.”
(source: Brand Embassy CSAT survey 2016)
Intelligent routing is really
smart and allows us to keep
track of key customers and
influencers without any
manual hassle.
It’s so quick. Direct messages
almost feel like have a chat
with the customer.
It’s incredible to think that
the same core team of seven
people has scaled operations
so exponentially.
“I simply like answering
questions. The more
“ Brand Embassy is an
exciting tool to get
technical the better!”
Vašek
to grips with.”
Martin
The Brand Embassy team are
a perfect corporate fit, we love
their friendly approach and
flexibility in helping us achieve
our goal.
It‘s easy to tag keywords
to keep track of marketing
campaigns and communi-
cations issues.
The workflow dashboard is
intuitive and easy to use, and
it’s effortless to add new digital
channels and even keep an eye
on what the competitors doing.
“The best questions
are the ones only
“It‘s the best feeling
for me when a customer
Why Brand Embassy
we can resolve”
Mirek
thanks me”
Sandra
Loves O2

Daniela Konečná
Lead Customer Success
Manager
14––15
Brand Embassy helps Enterprises
and high­growth companies
acquire and retain customers through
digital customer service at scale.

Fast integration and immediate results

1 Implementation in days, results in weeks and scaling
in months. Minimal input from IT department.

Enable service­to­sales opportunities

2 Increase revenue by identifying and closing sales
opportunities from within our platform

Built for Enterprises and high­growth companies

3 Process high volumes and utilize built-in, in-depth
reporting and analysis

We offer a free 14-day trial for eligible prospects and

provide both the technology and professional services REQUEST DEMO
to help transform your customer service operations.

www.brandembassy.com
 How O2’s Gurus
Define the Rulebook
on Delivering Social
Customer Service
at Scale

© Copyright Brand Embassy

2016 All rights reserved

Author: Brendan Donnellan

Design: Roman Černohous
Photography: Michal Hluchan

This case study was conducted in cooperation

with O2, a Brand Embassy client.

For more information or rights for republishing,

please contact support@brandembassy.com

Brand Embassy Inc.

620 Folsom Street
San francisco, CA 94107
United States
+1 415-212-5721
www.brandembassy.com
Copyright Brand Embassy
2016 All rights reserved