O2 giving us reasons to sit up and listen, watch and learn

I have never really taken any notice of the O2 brand in the UK, even though I am English. I do of course notice it when I support the English rugby side! Graham Webster, Director of Customer Experience at Telefonica Europe presented at the International Customer Experience World conference (Johannesburg, March 2013) and gave us some riveting insights to their O2 customer experience strategy.

O2 use web chat to engage with clients at a rate of 250,000 web chat calls per month. From this, they see the highest customer satisfaction from the web chat channel and the lowest cost per channel. Why are so many more organisations not using this phenomenal tool?

O2 branded the potential white elephant: the London dome in the East end. Was this done purely for sponsorship purposes? An element maybe? It gives great brand exposure. I hear my friends referring to concert X at the "O2" and a tennis spectacular at the "O2". Awesome!  But actually, it was done so that their O2 customers always get a better customer experience. Early release tickets, better offer tickets, zoned off areas, especially for the cellphone clients of O2.

Much to my horror did I realise that O2 also sponsor the Irish rugby team (it's the English thing in me!). O2 have done the most amazing customer engagement competitions for their Irish rugby fans. Fans were able to pre-record their pre match rah-rah speech to the players, ad it was played on the stadium screens on match day.  Fans were able to submit their name to be incorporated into players numbers on the back of their shirts, and find these online – I.e. Which player is carrying my name? Such incredible customer engagement strategies to build longer term client retention.

So what? The bottom line is that O2 enjoyed a 28% reduction in client churn which was directly attributable to the combination of these client engagement/sponsorship activities. Simply a remarkable measurable by which clients engaged in either web chat, O2 dome experiences, rugby competitions, etc.

Having said all of this, Graham did refer to the fact that none of this makes any sense at all if the network falls over or there are basic service offering mishaps. As we have mentioned before, client engagement strategies, marketing and loyalty initiatives must not be 'lipstick on a pig'!

O2, we salute you. Any company would enjoy a 28% reduction in churn. Thank you for sharing your insights.

                                                       Amanda Cromhout, Founder & CEO, Truth