in the news

October 11, 2010

At Reputation Online Live on Friday, Heather Taylor, Head of Social Media for Giffgaff, and Vincent Boon, Giffgaff's Community Manager, presented some figures that demonstrate that when a brand gives something back to its users, not only does this enhance the power of the community’s collective mind, but it reflects users’ behaviour in a way every brand can learn and benefit from.

One of the recurring themes throughout the event was how Giffgaff encourages customers to get involved by picking out positive behaviours and rewarding them. One of the most interesting ways this has been made possible is its partnership with Lithium Technologies, which creates seamless integration between the brand’s social presences. For instance, if a question is posed on Giffgaff’s Facebook page, it’s also fed into the brand’s forum. If an appropriate answer is posted via the forum, the response still shows up on Facebook and the credit is logged accordingly. Users earn credit for the help they provide across multiple sites.

As a result, customer activity has skyrocketed, and you can’t argue with the figures. The extreme is that Giffgaff’s top ten users spend on average 9.5 hours a day helping others, while 40% of users earn cashback rewards. They’re getting smarter at posting the right questions and answering in the right way, as 30% of organic search lands at the community pages. Giffgaff’s users provide an answer to a question within three minutes on average, no matter what time of day, and because of this, people ask the community instead of calling an agent 50% of the time. This activity reduces resources spent on call centres, improves customer care, and strengthens the community all in one. When supported by constant communication from Taylor and Boon to ensure an official contact is always available, plus the fact that 30% of ideas about improvement are put into process, the future looks promising.

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