Verizon Wireless Cuts Support Costs with Welcome Email Program

Many marketers forget that email can do much more than help you sell your products or services. It can also reduce your customer service and call center costs, as Verizon Wireless found out with its welcome campaign.

Verizon Wireless spent up to $200 million a year providing service support to new customers, John Edwards, associate director, email and search marketing, told attendees at the DMA’s 2011 Email Evolution Conference. Customers unable to figure out how to set up their new smartphones accounted for much of the expense, in the form of phone calls to Verizon’s contact centers.

Given that Verizon supports roughly 40 types of phones, service reps couldn’t simply refer to a brief cheat sheet to answer the most frequently asked questions. And customers’ inability to get the most from their phones not only was a drain on Verizon’s contact centers, but it led to increased dissatisfaction rates as well.

To help new smartphone owners help themselves—and to increase customer satisfaction and cut costs at the same time—Verizon reworked its traditional welcome email to new customers into a four-part campaign designed to create a “guided journey” to smartphone set-up.

Within one day of buying their smartphone, customers now receive an email with the subject line “Welcome to Verizon Wireless. Meet the support team.” The top of the message includes photos of individuals representing the types of support offered (software and apps, activation, device), which provides a human touch to what many new users view as an intimidating technical process. The emails are customized by type of device, and each links to a similarly customized landing page that focuses on getting started, with links to support forums and other resources.

Not surprisingly, this email has the highest open and clickthrough rates of the series: 42% and 35% respectively.

Customers receive their second email the following day. According to Edwards, customer satisfaction is highest on the second day of ownership. To take advantage of that enthusiasm, the email sent on day two serves primarily to make it easy for owners to share the news of their phone among members of their social networks.

This message has the lowest response of the four emails, with a 28% open rate and a 4% clickthrough rate. But each shared message generates an average of roughly 1.25 customer referrals, Edwards said.

On day three, customers receive an email that, like the first one, is targeted to their specific phone, spotlighting advice for some of the most frequently asked questions, such as how to set up wifi and how to extend the battery life. The topics are determined largely by the most common questions and issues of customers who get in touch with Verizon’s contact centers, and they are modified when appropriate. This email also includes links to Verizon’s online support center. The open rate for this third email is 30%, with a 20% clickthrough rate.

The final message in the series arrives on day six. It promotes the benefits of registering with the My Verizon online account management system to handle bill paying and keeping track of minutes, among other services. The open rate is again a healthy 30%, with a 16% clickthrough rate.

Not all opens or clicks occur immediately upon receipt of the emails, Edwards added. Customers tend to save the messages for future reference, which helps reinforce engagement.

While Edwards didn’t assign a dollar figure to how much money the welcome series has saved Verizon Wireless, he said that the company was definitely pleased with the results. The number of support phone calls has declined by up to five percentage points, he said, depending on the device. Just as important, customer satisfaction has increased.