Battle of the Telcos How Singtel, Starhub, M1 and MyRepublic fare online & on social media in Singapore

March 2015

BATTLE OF SOCIAL MEDIA LISTENING TO ONLINE CHATTER

•  WHICH BRAND has the biggest share of voice overall, and among influencers?

•  WHERE CUSTOMERS TALK of telcos, and where are the most negative overall?

•  WHAT BRAND has the best and worst brand perception among Singapore telcos?

•  WHO are the top Influencers discussing telcos in Singapore?

•  When it comes to Community Management, WHICH BRAND DOES IT BETTER, faster, or bigger?

BATTLE OF SOCIAL MEDIA METHODOLOGY Two Radars: •  One to check mentions of each brand •  One to check mentions of Starhub & specific

keywords related to Pricing, Customer Care, Product/Service, Comparison (with other brands)…

One Territory: •  Singapore •  In English only •  Jan 18th to Feb 18th •  All platforms: Websites, Facebook, Twitter,

Youtube, Instagram, Blogs, Media, Forums

Time-frame: Jan 16th to Feb 16th, 2015

BATTLE OF SOCIAL MEDIA WHO’S TALKING OF THE TELCOS?

•  Exactly 3,535 mentions for the telcos in Singapore in just one month

•  Like in so many other industries, the good old forums are where most discussion happen, by FAR

BATTLE OF SOCIAL MEDIA WHO’S TALKING OF THE TELCOS?

How are these 3,535 mentions split between brands? •  Half for Singtel (1,772) •  A small third for Starhub (1,029) •  A small quarter for M1 (847) •  A small nothing for MyRepublic (281)

Mentions are not exclusive one from another, as we’re going to see in a minute: internet and social media users love to compare everything!

BATTLE OF SOCIAL MEDIA WHAT PEOPLE SAY ABOUT US?

Conversations are markets, with recurring and seasonal topics. For the month of study, top topics include:

•  Singtel new logo

•  Starhub CNY Promotions & Deals •  M1 $200,000 support to help school kids of low-income families

•  And the usual comparison of performance vs price vs engagement vs customer care!

BATTLE OF SOCIAL MEDIA FOCUS ON TOP 300 MENTIONS

On KiasuParents.com, a long discussion on Starhub plans for kids and the possible ways to compensate for unused data or voice/SMS. No telco answers.

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Mostly on Twitter and Media, the M1 $200k initiative to support school kids from low-income family. A successful PR campaign.

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Negative mentions are almost always about poor customer service: long hotlines, poor answers, overall low level of care from telcos to customers (lack of flexibility).

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Positive mentions are often PR and Media related, mentioning financial results, or CSR-related activites. They don’t involve customers.

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BATTLE OF SOCIAL MEDIA FOCUS ON NEGATIVE MENTIONS

BATTLE OF SOCIAL MEDIA SO WHAT DO TELCOS DO??

They get fans & followers (Come on M1 can you really not be on Twitter as a telco??)…

BATTLE OF SOCIAL MEDIA SO WHAT DO TELCOS DO??

… But they don’t really care about what you say* anyway! Congrats M1 for engaging a bit more your community! (*Engagement rate = Number of interactions from fans/followers divided by total number of fans/followers. Decent engagement rate on social media are around 2%. Over 2% is usually promoted through Ads. Below 2%, well… you don’t really give a reason for fans/followers to engage)

BATTLE OF SOCIAL MEDIA BATTLE OF TOP 2 BRANDS

BATTLE OF SOCIAL MEDIA KEY TAKEWAYS – INDUSTRY LEVEL

1 TURN NEGATIVES INTO POSITIVES -  In a conversational world, people care more about

how you talk than about how you deliver -  Do answer ALL negatives, you’d be surprised how

fast it can turn into POSITIVES

2 LEARN FROM THE CROWD -  3,535 mentions of telcos in 30 days is a lot: let us

help you refine the raw data into gold insights -  From Pricing to Product/Service ideas with strong

potential of segmentation, listening triggers a better way of engaging customers

Focus on Starhub What internet & social media users say about

Starhub in Singapore?March 2015

•  239 top mentions analyzed between Jan 18th and February 18th, 2015

•  More representativity granted to Twitter where the conversation is higher in volume

WHO IS TALKING OF STARHUB? BRAND FOCUS

How are these 239 mentions split between topics? •  A huge majority in the conversation COMPARES

Starhub to other telcos •  CUSTOMER CARE comes 2nd with 23.4% of top

mentions… and they don’t say anything good… •  Products, Services and Prices come 3rd, without

being a discussion in itself (announcements, promotions).

Let’s see some details about the two first topics.

WHO’S TALKING STARHUB? BRAND FOCUS

In the absence of strong key differentiator, triggers for a telco change include:

•  Perceived price opportunity (promotions, seasonal plans & offers) •  Perceived service or care (customer care in particular)

•  Perceived performance (speed, availability, breakdowns)

WHAT IS STARHUB’S WORTH VS INDUSTRY? BRAND FOCUS

Nothing scary between Jan 18th and Feb 18th for Starhub.

Listening on the long-run also allows to see strong variations in opinion & conversations. Alerts can be setup in case too much of the conversation changes too fast (example “breakdown” or “down” or “broken” jumps from 5% to 25% of the

volume of conversations about “Starhub”)

TOP KEYWORDS ASSOCIATED W/ STARHUB BRAND FOCUS

Starhub in the top 100 of Most Sustainable Companies, an information the Media and a few Twitter accounts did show. Side-conversation on Digital TV on HardwareZone.com

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Facebook message from Daniel Tan Boon Huat looking for resellers of Singtel & Starhub prepaid top-up services.

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A lot of negative mentions are on the quality of service (breakdowns, mistakes in invoicing) and poor customer care (a 15min and a 26min hotline call are shared on Twitter).

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Positive mentions are often PR/Media (3-year sponsorship for School Green Awards) OR switchers from Singtel or M1 to Starhub

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STARHUB’S TOP 300 MENTIONS BRAND FOCUS

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NEGATIVE MENTIONS ABOUT STARHUB BRAND FOCUS

BREAKDOWN OF SENTIMENT FOR STARHUB

12%

Price Billing Product/Service

Customer Care

Comparison News/PR

+ - 4%

BRAND FOCUS

1.9%

24.1%

26.8%

37.5%

2.1%

29.2%

44.8%

0%

24.2%

12.1%

This table reads as follows: 12% of internet users who talked about the Price of Starhub products & services did so in a negative fashion (criticizing the brand or

talking about it in a lesser way than competition)

A more balanced content strategy on FB and TW although clear lack of rich media content (video in particular)

Engagement level is pretty nonexistent on Twitter, and decent on Facebook

STARHUB & ITS SOCIAL MEDIA ASSETS BRAND FOCUS

These are the 5 most influential Twitter accounts who mentioned (positively in green, neutrally in grey, or negatively in red) Starhub between Jan 18th and Feb 18th, 2015.

TOP INFLUENCERS MENTIONING STARHUB BRAND FOCUS

KEY TAKEWAYS – STARHUB LEVEL

1 WATCH FOR SWITCHERS -  When people hesitate and compare offers, don’t let

them without information or commercial contact -  One win for you = one loss for competition!

2 TRANSFER CRM FROM VOICE TO TWITTER -  Phone calls to the customer service are lengthy, even

if they solve the issue, it’s too long -  Switch the customer service on Twitter, where it’s

faster and more convenient for users

BRAND FOCUS

Thanks!

Agence Tesla, a social media agency in Singapore and Paris martin.pasquier@agencetesla.com

Follow us on Twitter @agencetesla or www.agencetesla.asia

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