Technology Products/Services

Situation Analysis: Koodo Mobile debuted in early 2008 with an affordable, simple mobility proposition, becoming the most successful wireless launch in Canadian history. Subsequently, Koodo’s competition copied its once-innovative products and services, making it increasingly important for the brand to find new ways of delivering its distinctive values. In a market known for dissatisfaction with customer service, customer support was a big opportunity. The challenge was to increase Koodo’s likelihood-to-recommend (LTR) score to increase sales, and to increase call deflections, which would lower costs.

Insight & Strategy: Koodo needed to make it easy for people to get the help they were looking for in a way that tied into its fair and simple brand proposition. Koodo’s customers, as value seekers, were used to trading time to save money, while Koodo had always encouraged its customers to help themselves with checking usage, changing plans and making payments.

Koodo’s target distrusted telcos, were dissatisfied with traditional customer service and relied on the internet for information and purchasing decisions. They respect people, not authority, and would rather solve their own problems immediately than wait on the phone for customer support. So self-service for customer support seemed a logical fit. Social media was identified as a transparent medium to create a self-sustaining social community, powered entirely by Koodo customers: a customer-to-customer support model. To fit with the Koodo brand it had to be simple, transparent and fun.

Execution: In early 2011, Koodo launched the Koodo Community, built on a highly customizable platform which included tablet and mobile accessibility, content indexed on Google, smart search and the ability to manage thousands of conversation threads. Members earned points based on their participation in asking and answering questions, while a leaderboard updated the achievement of participants. Status level names, like “Noob,” “Brainiac,” and “Prodigy,” injected the sense of fun.

Participation was motivated through gamification, with missions and badges to reinforce game mechanics. An exceptionally engaged group of members were recruited into a loyalty program called the “Mobile Masters” with its own privileges within the Community, including a customized kit with prizes and a personalized letter featuring their portrait image in eight-bit graphic style.

The media plan through Koodo-owned media channels was designed to reach existing and potential customers, retargeting visitors to KoodoMobile.com, while an exclusion filter prevented messaging people who had visited the Koodo Community in the last 14 days.

Results: The Community is entirely self-sustaining, resolving 99.96% of inquiries in less than four minutes on average in comparison to the telco average of around two hours to reply on Facebook. Community members’ likelihood-to-recommend (L2R) score increased by 8.7%, more than quadruple the objective, while call deflections increased by 64.6%, more than six-times the objective.

Cause & Effect: Koodo has received a third consecutive J.D. Power and Associates award for Highest Customer Satisfaction, one for each year since launching the Community. To date, the Koodo Community is the most active and visited community among Canadian telcos, with over three million annual visits. Media spending remained steady and did not spike prior to or during the launch of the Koodo Community while pricing has been maintained at competitive levels.

Credits:
Client: Koodo Mobile
Head of Koodo Mobile: Dan Quick
Chief Koodo officer: Kevin Banderk
VP, marketing communications: Lise Doucet
VP, customer experience: Bernard Szederkenyi
Head of digital marketing: Nathan Roth
Agency: Taxi
CDs: Steve Mykolyn, Lance Martin, Jeff MacEachern
ADs: Mike Blain, Jason Kerr, Jordan Dunlop, Melissa Zeta, Jon Barnes
CWs: Tal Wagman, Marko Pandza, Mike Blackmore, Trevor Aune
Planners/strategists: Zach Klein, Brandon Smith, Sean McDonald, Christine Maw
Account directors: Natalie Calderon, Jessica Lax
Account managers: Yousuf Afridi, Kirstin Bojanowski, Krista Cressman
Media planners: Charlaine St-Amant, Brie Angus, Shaun Dias
Media buyers: Brie Angus, Shaun Dias
Digital producer: Joyce King
Digital production lead: Hanna Bratt
Technical director: Matt Burtch
Illustrator: Jon Krogh
Director of interaction design: Damien Boyes
Interaction design: Jordan Kentris
Developer: Mason Braun
Senior developer: Ryan Johnson