The holidays are finally here! Anyone and everyone is tuning in to their football games or watching the endless Christmas specials. It is also possible that people are binge-watching their favourite TV shows on their preferred streaming service. What if the streaming service were to go down at this time? While it may be a minor inconvenience for some, it might spell doom for those whose plans were to binge watch their favourite televised series! At such a juncture, the customer is going to turn to their streaming service’s social customer care for help. The key question is – are their concerns going to be resolved online?
We’ve taken 3 popular streaming services, Netflix, Hulu and HBONow, and analysed their customer conversations on Twitter. Apart from fans asking for a lot of shows to return, the Twitter feed of these brands had users conversing about issues with playback, app experience, and subscription related concerns. Using Trooya’s Benchmarking feature and our manual analysis, we analysed the brand on the following parameters:
- Responses to issues with playback: This is based on whether the brand responded to customers concerned about playback related issues, and the manner in which they communicated or resolved the concern online
- Responses to app and subscription concerns: This is based on whether the brand responded to customers concerned about app experience and subscription related concerns. Additionally, attention was also paid to how did the brand communicate and resolve the concern online
- Average response time: What was the average time in which a brand issued a response to a customer
- Average response rate: How many customer interactions did a brand respond to, from the total interactions it received for a specific duration of time
Responses to issues with playback
Netflix
Hey there, Khristine! We would love to get you back to some more holiday cheer! 🎅🏼🎄🎁 What happens when watching? Are you coming across any error codes or messages? *WF
— Netflix CS (@Netflixhelps) December 23, 2017
Netflix responded to 82% of issues related to playback. The responses are highly personalised and always empathise with the customer. They tend to ask specific questions, such as the error code or message the customer sees on their screen. Please note that Netflix has a singles social customer care Twitter handle in the world. Thus, they receive queries from across the globe across various languages, which they usually respond to. This point is important as the sheer volume of queries coming to them from all over the world tends to impact their response rate.
Hulu
@hulu_support This is me, officially asking for a credit for no service … loading error and buffering
— Carol (@aspenskidude) December 19, 2017
Hulu responded to 92% of playback related issues it received on Twitter. Their communication strategy differs from Netflix because they usually redirect customers to their website for redressal. The advantage of this strategy is that there is little need for posting a closure message, as the brand’s first level response attempts to take the issue off social media. Besides the redirection, their responses appear to be personalised and empathetic.
HBONow
I love that I pay $16.04 a month through @iTunes for @hbonow and it never actually works on my @AppleTV. @HBONowHelp
— Morgan Holian (@mcholian) December 8, 2017
HBONow replied to 96% of issues related to playback. Their replies feel a little templated. Their response strategy comprises of acknowledging a customer by their name, apologising and taking the conversation to Twitter DMs. The only sign of personalisation is the sign-off by the response executive.
Responses to account related issues:
Netflix
HI there! Not to worry, we have Billing Gurus who can scope this out further for you! Please contact one of our live 24/7 agents here: https://t.co/aRoaS3FeDK. *WF
— Netflix CS (@Netflixhelps) December 23, 2017
Netflix responded to 86% of subscription and app related concerns. Netflix has a different approach to managing such concerns. For instance, when Netflix receives a subscription billing concern, they redirect the customer to live support; the brand promotes this support as comprising of agents who are available 24×7. Despite the redirection, their responses still continue to be highly personalised.
Hulu
We’d hate to see you go, Marc! Sorry to hear about the trouble. That info should only change if it is updated by you or someone else who has access to your account. Have you tried clearing: https://t.co/CoMmEWkQqX before entering your details?
— Hulu Support (@hulu_support) December 21, 2017
Hulu responded to 94% of subscription and app related concerns. If the issue is a standard or general, they resolve it directly on Twitter. While they usually tend to redirect customers to their own website, they do so after explaining the issue to the customer. This approach is beneficial because it does not keep the customer waiting for an explanation about their issues. The tone of the responses is conversational yet professional.
HBONow
Hi, apologies for the inconvenience. For further assistance with #HBONOW on your Apple TV, please DM us your email and device generation. Thank you. ^AC
— @HBONowHelp (@HBONowHelp) December 8, 2017
HBONow responded to 98% of subscription and app related concerns. Their responses appear to be the same regardless of the concern shared with them on Twitter. However, this brand excels at following up with customers whose issues take time to resolve. For instance, this peculiar customer was contacted across several days by the brand because his issue was not getting resolved.
Average Response Time
Using Trooya’s Benchmarking tool, we analysed the average response time of the 3 brands. An ideal response time is said to be around 30 mins. HBONow had a response time of 16 mins, Hulu had a response time of 222 mins and Netflix had a response time of 424 mins. Please note, while Netflix’s handle manages customer queries across the globe, Hulu and HBONow manage queries from the U.S only. That is why Netflix’s response time should be read in that context, and not in comparison to Hulu and HBONow.
Average Response Rate
Using Trooya’s Benchmarking tool, we analysed the average response rate of the 3 brands. The numbers reflect the percentage of customer conversations that the brand has replied. Netflix responded to 42% of conversations while HBONow responded to 62% and Hulu responded to 82% of their tweets. However, let us remember that conversations that are not responded to impact the response rate of these brands. For instance, general chatter about shows or their characters don’t need a brand’s response
| Netflix | Hulu | HBONow | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Responses to issues with playback | 5/5 | 5/5 | 5/5 |
| Netflix responded to 82% of issues with playback | Hulu responded to 92% of issues with playback | HBONow responded to 96% of issues with playback | |
| Responses to app and subscription concerns | 5/5 | 5/5 | 5/5 |
| Netflix responded to 86% of app and subscription concerns | Hulu responded to 94% of app and subscription concerns | HBONow responded to 98% of app and subscription concerns | |
| Average Response Time | 1/5 | 1/5 | 5/5 |
| Netflix had an average response time of 424 mins. | Hulu had an average response time of 222 mins. | HBONow had an average response time of 16 mins. | |
| Average Response Rate | 2/5 | 4/5 | 3/5 |
| Netflix had an average response rate of 42% | Hulu had an average response rate of 82% | HBONow had an average response rate of 62% | |
| Weighted Average Score | 3.1 | 3.4 | 4.8 |
Key takeaways from the social customer care of the brands:
1) Personalise your responses: Netflix responded to customers with a very high degree of personalisation, to the extent of using emojis in their replies. This gives a customer the feeling of human interaction and personal attention. It also helps in creating a memorable social customer care experience.
2) Look out for conversations that don’t tag you: Customers don’t always tag the brand about whom they write on social media. If a brand focuses only on tagged conversations, it can miss posts where customers shared their concerns by naming the brand instead of tagging their official support handle. HBONow took care of this situation by responding to both conversations where they were tagged as well as cases where they were not. They were essentially paying attention to even those conversations where their name was taken. This approach is needed for any customer-centric brand on social media.
Hi, apologies for the difficulties. Please DM us with your #HBONOW email and the device you stream with. Thanks ^BC
— @HBONowHelp (@HBONowHelp) November 29, 2017
3) Closing the loop: Closing the loop refers to following up on a customer on the original tweet. It is comparable to ending a face-to-face conversation. You wouldn’t just walk off without ending your real conversations so do the same with your digital conversations too. Below is an example of an opportunity to close the loop that Netflix didn’t capitalise on.
Gotcha, no worries, we can also be reached here directly: 1800 071 578 😃 *WF
— Netflix CS (@Netflixhelps) December 22, 2017
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