Case study – how AT&T use Facebook for customer service

Facebook have just released a joint case study with AT&T that shows how Facebook can effectively be used for customer service. With over 1.6 million fans on their Page, it’s an interesting example of how a larger organisation can effectively manage and consolidate their customer service offering through a new channel and how they have equipped themselves to deal with the hundreds of queries they receive on the Page each day. Below I take a look at some of the key findings from the case study, as well as how the Page itself is structured to facilitate customer service and a positive experience for users.

Using discussions

The first thing to note on the AT&T Page is that they are effectively using discussions to manage customer queries, and are as active in the boards here as they are through the wall of the Page. This is a useful way to run the Page both for themselves and their consumers. Often brands can forget about discussion boards, or don’t drive customers there, when in many ways it’s the most natural place to manage customer service. Discussion boards allow for a dedicated space to follow up someone’s query and the customer can get more out of it by following threads that might apply to them to see if others have had the same problem, or how it’s been dealt with. It adds an element of organisation to customer queries and is something many brands should be practicing, particularly larger Pages :

Customer service is about conversation

If you go to the AT&T Facebook Page, you’ll notice that they have developed apps to drive engagement on the Page, but customer service is kept purely to conversation through the wall or the discussion board. They haven’t developed separate forms for example to lodge a query, but have recognised that this is something they need to keep simple and facilitate through existing Facebook mechanics. This is a good learning for any sized business that wants to run customer service through Facebook. By using simple methods such as posting an email address in reply to comments if something needs to be taken offline, you can run the Page effectively and offer a satisfactory experience to customers.

Educating employees

An important finding revealed in the case study is that AT&T hold a weekly digital leadership council, attended by staff members across ecommerce, customer care, PR & marketing. This helps to ensure that there is clear collaboration between different departments and that everyone responsible for representing the company both offline and online is communicating the same messages. In larger organisations it’s very easy for different departments to become fragmented and with something as public as your Facebook Page, this can be dangerous. At the digital council meetings, the people responsible for running the Facebook Page get the information they need to manage customers and importantly avoid giving out the wrong information. For many organisations this might seem difficult to fit in, but investing time up front in educating employees could help avoid costly mistakes further down the line.

Encouraging fans

What’s interesting and perhaps more unique to AT&T, is that other breakout Pages and Groups have been set up by fans, who have an interest in bringing together other AT&T fans to facilitate conversation. In many cases they answer queries on their own Page as well as the AT&T Page. Rather than restricting conversation amongst these fans, AT&T actually encourage it. If AT&T are out of office hours and another group has responded to queries on their wall, AT&T staff go to these Pages and personally thank them. This is quite the opposite of what you might expect from a large organisation, who may want to shut these groups down for risk of the wrong information being communicated. This shows AT&T understand communities and how they can benefit their brand.

The Facebook team

In the case study, AT&T reveal that they started with a team of 20 people to manage the Facebook Page, who have all built up a personal following among the community by using their real names when replying to people. Importantly, they invested in putting their top customer care managers onto the Page, to ensure that people were getting the best customer service possible. This shows forward thinking from AT&T, as they recognised the importance of their Facebook Page as a primary customer service channel , pulling staff from other established areas to ensure they gave the Facebook Page the best possible chance of succeeding.

The results

Most importantly, the effort AT&T are putting into running an effective customer service strategy through Facebook, is paying off. When surveying the Page, they found they were over-delivering on customer service (though take this with a pinch of salt, as what this actually means isn’t expanded on in the case study). Through running effective customer service they are also encouraging sales through the Page, as they see people traveling through the ‘marketing funnel’. They consistently track sales that originated on Facebook, showing that what can start as customer service can eventually drive sales and ROI.