The Customer - First Future of Customer Care

The Customer-First
Future of Customer Care
INSIGHTS, BEST PRACTICES, AND EXAMPLES
FROM LEADING CARE AND MARKETING EXECUTIVES
Featuring insights from:
Pete Blackshaw, Nestle
Jessica Federer, Formerly at Bayer
Kleigh Heather, Philip Morris International Management SA (PMI)
Jennifer Plozai, Transportation Security Administration (TSA)
Josh Machiz, Nasdaq
Keith Moor, Santander UK

© 2017 Sprinklr, Inc. All rights reserved. www.sprinklr.com info@sprinklr.com
Table of Contents
Introduction
C H A P T E R O N E
Customer Care in an Un-Enterprise World
C H A P T E R T W O
The Four Tenets of Customer Care
C H A P T E R T H R E E
How to Rewire Customer Care
Conclusion
01
03
06
11
16

© 2017 Sprinklr, Inc. All rights reserved.
THE CUSTOMER-FIRST FUTURE OF CUSTOMER CARE | 01INTRODUCTION
Taking Care of the Customer
Is More Important Than Ever
Marc Carter was on a mission.
He needed more Tommee Tippee sippy cups for his 14-year-old son,
Ben. Ben has autism, and this particular brand of cup was the only
one he had ever felt comfortable drinking from. He’d been using
them since he was two, and flatly refused any alternative.
Trouble was, they were discontinued. In a desperate search,
Marc started a social media campaign called #CupForBen.1
His
ask was simple: if anyone had a Tommee Tippee cup, would they
consider sending it to his family? He would pay for the product
and shipping fees.
Marc’s story soon mushroomed, earning an abundance of sympathy
across the web – and the attention of the brand.
The next day, @TommeeTippee_UK tweeted that it was conducting
an international search for the original designs for the product.
Once the plans were found, Tommee Tippee announced it would
produce a line of 500 of these cups – just for Ben.
“We are delighted to confirm that we are able to start production
on a run of the original cup, ensuring that Ben has a lifetime
supply and that his family won’t ever have to worry about finding
another cup,” the company said in a statement.2
This is not just a story of a company going above and beyond
to make customers feel like they matter. It’s a sign of what’s to come.

THE CUSTOMER-FIRST FUTURE OF CUSTOMER CARE | 02INTRODUCTION
UNPACKING THE FUTURE OF CUSTOMER CARE
From Tommee Tippee to Nordstrom, Southwest, and Zappos, leading
brands are setting a new benchmark for service and demonstrating
that taking care of the customer is more important than ever.3
They’re
not the only ones investing in this once-begrudged “cost center.”
According to Forrester, 72% of businesses name improving customer
experience as their top priority.4
We’re in a new world of business. One where customers, connected
and empowered like never before, are in control. How they apply
that powerful force – what they ultimately choose to say – comes
down to experience, which is shaped by every interaction with
a brand.
Recognizing that this new world exists is half the battle. The other half
is getting it right. In this whitepaper, we partner with leading customer
care executives to unpack the future of customer care, including:
• What the customer care transformation looks like.
• The role of people, process, and technology in driving change.
• Insights, advice, and examples from executives at Nestlé,
Nasdaq, Santander UK, Philip Morris International Management
SA (PMI), and more.

CHAPTER NUMBER
Chapter Name
Goes Here
CHAPTER ONE
Customer Care
in an Un-Enterprise World

THE CUSTOMER-FIRST FUTURE OF CUSTOMER CARE | 04CHAPTER 1: CUSTOMER CARE IN AN UN-ENTERPRISE WORLD
Until recently, customer care was a chain reaction of events initiated
by unhappy customers and handled – not always well – by siloed departments.
If a customer’s shoes didn’t fit, he or she would call the retailer’s
customer service line. The brand would apologize, then possibly
reimburse them or send a new pair. If the stars were aligned,
the customer would receive the appropriate help and it would
be case closed.
As technologies evolved, brands recycled this formula to fit new
channels – call centers gave way to email chains and website FAQs.
But the overall approach largely remained the same. Then social
media came along and something interesting happened.
“Customer service has always been considered a neglected
stepchild,” says Pete Blackshaw, Nestlé’s global head of digital
and social and author of “Satisfied Customers Tell Three Friends,
Angry Customers Tell 3000.”
“Social media has forced us all to think differently about it because
we’ve all seen the incredible returns,” he says. “We’ve seen how
a little bit of love toward the consumer can amplify your message,
lead to a positive review, shape early perceptions about a new
product, and impact public discourse about the brand at large.”

THE CUSTOMER-FIRST FUTURE OF CUSTOMER CARE | 05CHAPTER 1: CUSTOMER CARE IN AN UN-ENTERPRISE WORLD
Nearly three billion people around the world are talking to one
another through social networks.5
And now more than ever,
they’re also using these channels to talk to (and about) companies.
This presents unprecedented opportunities and challenges for
customer care leaders. They have more customers, across more
channels, moving more quickly than ever before. Each customer’s
history with the brand is incredibly nuanced and complex. And
even the smallest of mishaps can become a crisis that brings the
company to its knees.
In this new world, it’s what customers say that matters most.
And what they say about your brand is largely defined by how
you care for them.
“Customer care is no longer the cost center of the business;
it’s the new price of entry,” Blackshaw says. “If you have any
desire to win in areas like e-commerce, direct-to-consumer
sales, and marketing, customer care is your best ally – helping
you retain customers, nurture advocates, and drive a more
profitable relationship. Customer care is your most powerful
marketing engine” he says.
NEW CUSTOMER EXPECTATIONS,
NEW ENTERPRISE CHALLENGES
Source: Statista
Nearly 3 billion people
around the world are
talking to one another
through social networks.

CHAPTER TWO
The Four New Tenets
of Customer Care

THE CUSTOMER-FIRST FUTURE OF CUSTOMER CARE | 07CHAPTER 2: THE FOUR TENETS OF CUSTOMER CARE
Customer care is no longer a niche, walled-off component of a large corporation. It’s now an area
that will determine whether companies thrive or disappear in the coming years. To stay relevant,
brands must transform their organizations to account for the new rules of customer care.
1. IT’S MORE PROACTIVE THAN REACTIVE.
Customer care is a 24/7 battlefield favoring those who can serve
proactively and reach customers on their preferred channels.
Global tobacco company Philip Morris International Management SA
(PMI) demonstrated this after launching IQOS. IQOS is an innovative
device that heats tobacco units (HEETS) without burning them –
generating vapor instead of smoke and reducing levels of harmful
compounds by 90% on average.
The new technology-driven product implied a significant change
to the commercial and post-sales approach, compared to what
the company was used to with cigarettes.
“We noticed a pattern of care-related issues through social media
and we wanted to proactively address that,” says Kleigh Heather,
a director in PMI’s Digital Lab. “We decided to leverage social as
a mechanism for detecting, triaging, and resolving customer care
issues faced by adult IQOS users.”

THE CUSTOMER-FIRST FUTURE OF CUSTOMER CARE | 08
The team designed a whole new process for customer care, involving
proactively listening for mentions of the new IQOS product (even
if these conversations weren’t directed at the brand), multi-team
workflows, an integration with traditional care systems. On average,
it takes the team just 11 minutes to resolve cases.
“We made sure there would be a seamless transition from social to
phone,” says Kleigh. “If an IQOS user still doesn’t seem satisfied after
a few interactions on social media, we can send the case to a call
center. The end result is that our customers feel like we’re taking
care of them.”
2. IT’S USED TO SHAPE BRAND PERCEPTION
From Wendy’s to US Airways, too many companies have paid
the price when an isolated customer service blunder goes viral.6,7
And plenty of companies wish consumers could see their brand
through a different lens. But effective customer care can go
a long way in mitigating PR crises and changing first impressions.
The Transportation Security Administration (TSA) is a prime
example of how customer care can shape brand perception.
In 2015, the U.S. government agency launched a social customer
care program with one humble goal in mind: to make it easier
(and perhaps more enjoyable) for people to get from one
destination to another.
“I think we surprised a lot of people by launching a social
customer care program,” says Jennifer Plozai, director of external
communications for the TSA, about the initiative.8
“But if you really
think about it, it makes perfect sense. More and more people are
communicating on social to try and get answers to their questions.”
On average, it takes the PMI customer
care team 11 minutes to resolve cases.
CHAPTER 2: THE FOUR TENETS OF CUSTOMER CARE

AskTSA is now one of the most popular accounts on the internet – it
even outranked Beyoncé on Rolling Stone’s list of 100 best Instagram
accounts. And there’s a sizable number of articles featuring the
team’s accomplishments. What started out as a pilot program has
turned into a highly successful social media strategy. It has also
turned into one of the best examples of using social to drive systemic
changes and shape public perception. “This program has really
helped to soften the public perception of TSA,” says Plozai.9
Earlier this year, a breast cancer patient traveling through airport
security had a traumatic experience that went viral.10
“As soon
as we became aware of it, we reached out, got her on the phone
with a TSA manager to talk through what happened,” Plozai says.
“TSA is now working with her and the Susan G. Komen Foundation
to develop educational videos and training. The news stories ended
up being more positive because the passenger spoke about our
interaction - letting the world know that we were working together
to address these concerns.”
3. IT SPREADS CUSTOMER INSIGHTS
ACROSS THE ORGANIZATION
As the most customer-facing function, customer care has the
opportunity to become the center for customer insights – insights
that can be funneled to other parts of the organization.
Nasdaq, a social media veteran, knows this well. The Nasdaq social
team works to engage the audience as much as possible. If a follower
asks a good question during a Facebook Live event, for example,
the team will feature their photo on the Nasdaq tower in Times
Square or dedicate a future episode (or another piece of content)
to that topic. But it doesn’t stop there. Nasdaq also uses these social
media interactions to unearth opportunities for creating systemic
changes within the organization.
“We’re using social to make strategic decisions that are based
on putting our customers first,” says Josh Machiz, Nasdaq’s chief
digital officer.11
“If somebody doesn’t like something about one
of our products, then we go back and figure out what went
wrong, and we dedicate ourselves to making things better.”
Microsoft USA takes a similar approach. Microsoft’s Social
Command Center pulls in about 150 million conversations
each year through social listening.12
After A.I. filters scan and
deactivate irrelevant conversations – such as someone cleaning
the “windows in their office” – about five million are handled
personally. The social team directly reaches out to customers
with personalized messages. But it doesn’t stop there. Ideas
and suggestions from customers are forwarded to development
teams, to be turned into product improvements. And once
a product has been updated, the company circles back with
those customers letting them know. These customers, in turn,
organically advocate on behalf of the brand and promote
Microsoft products to their networks.
Source: Microsoft.
Microsoft’s Social Command
Center pulls in about 150
million conversations each
year through social listening.

4. IT GOES HAND IN HAND WITH MARKETING
In most organizations, there’s a clear line separating marketing and
customer care. In one corner of the office, marketers try to draw
in new customers. In the other corner, customer care works to get
people off the phone as quickly as possible. The byproduct is a
crippling inability to truly understand – and serve – the customer.
That’s why Santander UK – one of the largest banks in the world
– closes the gap between these two functions. Marketing works
with customer care to develop response strategies, maneuver
tricky situations, and turn insights into action. “We have a great
relationship with our customer care team,” says Andy Freeman,
head of social and digital at Santander UK. “They are responsible
for the day-to-day queries that come through on social media,
dealing with up to 3,000 inbound messages per week. We’re with
them every step of the way.”
As a result, Santander is able to deliver more personalized
experiences to its 14 million customers – redefining what
it means to serve customers at scale.
“We deliver valuable tools to help people understand everything
from what it’s like to be a first-time customer, to helpful products
and services someone might want, to larger issues around fraud
and theft protection,” says Chris Parker, senior social media manager
for Santander UK. “We’re using social to reach our customers on
the channels of their choice, to engage with them more deeply,
and to help our customers more intuitively.”
At Santander UK, marketing
and care work together to field
and resolve 3,000 inbound
messages per week.

CHAPTER THREE
How to Rewire
Customer Care

THE CUSTOMER-FIRST FUTURE OF CUSTOMER CARE | 12CHAPTER 3: HOW TO REWIRE CUSTOMER CARE
In a world of heightened customer expectations, traditional strategies and systems
hold companies back. Customer care leaders need to approach care in a way
that unifies teams, processes, data, and technology.
1. PLACE SOCIAL AT THE CENTER OF CUSTOMER CARE
As consumers harness social media to research products, make
purchases, and share their opinions far and wide, the onus is
on brands to firmly ground customer care efforts in social.
At Santander UK, social media is the paving the way for delivering
personal, approachable, and human experiences at scale.13
In the past year alone, the bank reached more than 100 million
consumers – resulting in more than 1.5 million engagements –
through social.
“What social media does is obliterate the traditional barrier between
a brand and its customers,” says Santander UK CMO Keith Moor.
“If people like something, they’ll talk about it. If they don’t, they’ll
certainly talk about it … Our teams can solve customer issues quickly
and efficiently. And with the insights we draw from customer
interactions, we’re able to provide the most relevant possible
content day in and day out.”

www.sprinklr.com info@sprinklr.comwww.sprinklr.com info@sprinklr.com
2. MAKE IT EASIER FOR TEAMS TO COLLABORATE
In most organizations, different teams are managing different parts
of the customer journey, but they’re not working together. They don’t
see the customer through the same lens. The customer’s experience
with the brand becomes disjointed as a result – they see emails from
marketing, while being on hold with the care team.
“Changing the processes was our way of making it easier and more
intuitive for people to embrace new digital strategies and work
together toward a shared vision,” says Jessica Federer, former chief
digital officer at Bayer. “Instead of trying to get every car to turn right,
we just turned the whole road right and then all the cars turn right.”
PMI took a similar approach when building out its social care
function. The social care agents work in the same location as the
traditional care team, share the same workflows and processes,
and leverage the same customer data. This level of collaboration
ensures that no matter what channel customers use – Twitter
or phone – they’ll have a consistent experience.
3. UNITE CUSTOMER DATA WITHIN CARE
AND ACROSS THE ORGANIZATION
Brands have more data at their disposal than ever before.
The challenge isn’t just accessing this data. It’s figuring out how
to extract meaningful insights from all that data, and making it
readily available for the whole organization – so that any customer-
facing employee can engage with the customer at the right time
with the right context.
“At the service level, we have a unique opportunity to build holistic
customer profiles,” Blackshaw says. “If you know that the individual
who gave you direct feedback is also active on Facebook or is also
active on Twitter, and is also an influential blogger, you can assign a
much bigger value proposition to that customer and that interaction.”
CHAPTER 3: HOW TO REWIRE CUSTOMER CARE

“We as an industry need to work toward a future where traditional
customer data (like CRM information) and non-traditional data
(like social engagements) are fused together,” he continues.
From website to email to CRM, many enterprises have invested
heavily in systems that house structured data about customers.
This structured data, while valuable, gives customer-facing teams
an incomplete picture. To empower teams with the information
they need, brands need to fold in the unstructured (and uniquely
human) insights that only social can provide.
“Only when we apply the human context from social to valuable
structured data can we create a unified view of the customer,”
Blackshaw says.
4. INTEGRATE CARE TECHNOLOGY WITH SOCIAL,
MARKETING, AND SALES TECHNOLOGIES
Customer care technology has historically been dis-integrated
and siloed. Each team would collect data and track customer
interactions in their own way. As such, there was no strategy
for creating a unified view of the customer across the organization.
“I remember asking a really simple question: How do customers
talk to us?” Federer says. “There was no answer because in every
country, every brand team had their own Facebook page.” The
customer care process was unnecessarily time-consuming
and disjointed, she continues. Each team would gather customer
comments in an Excel spreadsheet, document their answers,
send them off for legal approvals, and finally be ready to
communicate with the customer.”
This process is difficult to scale and ineffective for the customer. That’s
why technology is so important to the customer care transformation.

As Blackshaw says, “The core value proposition we bring to consumers
is far more akin to a hotel concierge than outbound marketer. We’re
turning every service moment into an opportunity. That’s incredibly
powerful. But are we ready and equipped to address the fire hydrant
of questions coming from consumers?”
“Until you have a holistic technology solution, you have a bunch
of disjointed data segments. That’s really labor intensive and heavily
dependent on people,” he continues. “Organizations need an
integrated solution that allows them to collect data from multiple
customer touchpoints in real time – and share that data across
teams with ease.”
With the right technology at the center of an operation, all customer
care team members can keep the customer at the center of their
processes. Teams can then reach, engage, and listen to customers
across all digital channels at scale.
“Now, instead of having hundreds of spreadsheets from different
teams, we have one clear voice. Instead of seeing spikes in engagement
two weeks later, we can see what topics are trending right now.
We can see why people are talking about our products. We can follow
up with that direct contact,” Blackshaw says.
“Customers have a voice. They’ve always had a voice. That’s why
businesses succeed or fail,” Federer adds. “But now, it’s going
to be really difficult for businesses to survive unless they integrate
the technology to make customer data holistically available and
accessible throughout their organization. The good news is this
technology does exist, and there are solutions available that are
tailored to the needs of brands trying to improve their overall
care efforts.”
Organizations need an integrated solution
that allows them to collect data from multiple
customer touchpoints in real time.

THE CUSTOMER-FIRST FUTURE OF CUSTOMER CARE | 16CONCLUSION
The Customer-First Future
of Customer Care Starts Today
We’re in a new world of business where the old rules don’t apply.
Connected and empowered customers control the conversation.
As a result, they expect companies to respond immediately to their
questions and concerns – and to do so on their preferred channels.
If no one is there to help, the silence can be deafening.
To get to the customer-first future of care, all brands – especially
those entrenched in legacy systems and strategies – must overhaul
their approach to people, processes, data, and technology.
As Federer warns, “The customer care leader of the future will be
any leader that still wants to have a job. If you’re not customer-
centric in whatever role you’re in, you’re going to be out of work
because that’s the world that we’ll be operating in.”

THE CUSTOMER-FIRST FUTURE OF CUSTOMER CARE | 17SECTION TITLE
1
Tommee Tippee UK, “#CupForBen Celebration,” Twitter, last modified August 25, 2017,
https://twitter.com/i/moments/900993222830428160.
2
“Cup For Ben,” Tommee Tippee, last modified September 13, 2017, https://www.
tommeetippee.co.uk/cupforben/.
3
Shep Hyken, “Ten Customer Service and Customer Experience Trends for 2017,” last
modified January 7, 2017, https://www.forbes.com/sites/shephyken/2017/01/07/10-
customer-service-and-customer-experience-cx-trends-for-2017/.
4
Kate Leggett, Ian Jacobs with Daniel Hong, Art Schoeller, and Michael Chirokas, “Assess
Customer Service Capabilities To Pinpoint Opportunities For Better Service,” Forrester, last
modified August 28, 2017, https://www.forrester.com/report/Assess+Customer+Service+Cap
abilities+To+Pinpoint+Opportunities+For+Better+Service/-/E-RES59308/.
5
“Number of social media users worldwide from 2010 to 2021 (in billions),” Statista, last
modified 2017, https://www.statista.com/statistics/278414/number-of-worldwide-social-
network-users/.
6
Rose Leadem, “Biggest Social Media Fails of 2017,” Entrepreneur, last modified March 27,
2017, https://www.entrepreneur.com/slideshow/287469.
7
Marc Schenker, “These Corporate Media Fails Are So Bad, They’ve Had to Issue Mea Culpas,”
Digital Trends, last modified August 10, 2015, https://www.digitaltrends.com/social-media/
the-most-scandalous-corporate-social-media-fails/.
8
Uyen Nguyen, “Meet the Team Transforming the Reputation of the TSA,” Sprinklr, last
modified February 8, 2017, https://blog.sprinklr.com/meet-the-team-transforming-tsa-
reputation-with-customer-care/.
9
“TSA Gains Popular Following on Instagram,” CBS, last modified February 27, 2017,
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/tsa-gains-popular-following-on-instagram/.
10
Travis M. Andrews, “‘You cannot touch me there’: Breast cancer patient claims TSA
‘humiliated’ and ‘violated’ her,” The Washington Post, last modified December 8, 2016,
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2016/12/08/you-cannot-
touch-me-there-breast-cancer-patient-claims-tsa-humiliated-and-violated-her/?utm_
term=.4bba1b890804.
11
Uyen Nguyen, “Nasdaq Shows Us How a Finance Company Can Be a Social Media Darling,”
Sprinklr, last modified September 26, 2016, https://blog.sprinklr.com/nasdaq-is-a-social-
media-darling/.
12
“The Customer-First Future of Marketing,” Sprinklr, last modified May 10, 2017, http://
explore.sprinklr.com/future-of-marketing-whitepaper.html/.
13
“How Santander UK Anchors the Customer Experience in Social,” Sprinklr, last modified
May 10, 2017 https://explore.sprinklr.com/santander-case-study-customer-experience.html/.
Appendix

THE CUSTOMER-FIRST FUTURE OF CUSTOMER CARE | 18SECTION TITLE

The Customer - First Future of Customer Care

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