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

Tesla Insights 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 opened: -  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 -  1st March till 31st March -  All platforms: Websites, Facebook,

Twitter, Youtube, Instagram, Blogs, Media, Forums

Why Radarly? -  Leader in Social media listening

technology -  100+ emp company, 7 y.o -  Working globally with Danone,

McDonald’s, Adidas…

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

•  Exactly 7 337 mentions for the telcos in Singapore in just one month (without Facebook). •  Last month, most of the conversation happened on the forums. In response to the Gushcloud smear

campaign by Singtel, all 4 telcos and news channels shifted their conversations to Twitter in order to respond to their customers individually.

Hello Gushcloud!

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

How are these 7,337 mentions split between brands? •  One third for Singtel (3,143) •  Half for Starhub (2,143) •  A small quarter for M1 (1,632) •  A small nothing for MyRepublic (1,007)

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: •  Gushcloud smear campaign •  New data roaming plan from Singtel •  MyRepublic wanting to offer unlimited amount of data •  And the usual comparison of performance vs price vs engagement vs customer care!

BATTLE OF SOCIAL MEDIA FOCUS ON TOP 300 MENTIONS

A long Twitter discussion between MyRepublic and a customer about international latency, inferior to competitors.

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2

1

Peak of conversation after the Gushcloud smear campaign revelations and simultaneously the new illimited data plan promised by MyRepublic.

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Negative mentions have doubled this month because of the Gushcloud smear campaign which monopolized the conversation this month. Other negative posts are mainly about poor customer service and connection problems.

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1 3

4 Positive mentions mainly refer to the promise from MyRepublic of unlimited data plans.

(24.1% last month)

BATTLE OF SOCIAL MEDIA FOCUS ON MY REPUBLIC TOP MENTIONS

My Republic should have waited a bit more before announcing the promise of illimited data plan as it has been lost in the noise of the Gushcloud campaign bad buzz. On the PR communication day, 18th of March, only 50% of the mentions of telcos were reffering to their new plan.

Top 300 mentions Top mentions of My Republic

Hello Gushcloud! Promise of illimited data plan from My Republic

BATTLE OF SOCIAL MEDIA FOCUS ON NEGATIVE MENTIONS

It’s easy to transfer customer service on Twitter and avoid the bane of call-center, hated by all users.

BATTLE OF SOCIAL MEDIA FOCUS ON THE GUSHCLOUD SMEAR CAMPAIGN

4000 mentions have been referring to the Gushcloud smear campaign, and 44% of the top mentions (mentions with the highest reach) ! Let’s have a closer look to this bad buzz and how the telcos answered to it.

BATTLE OF SOCIAL MEDIA FOCUS ON THE GUSHCLOUD SMEAR CAMPAIGN

On 14th of March, the influencial blogger Xiuxue, publishes in a blogpost the brief of the agency Gushcloud asking bloggers to complain about competitors of Singtel. She also publishes some of the tweets from these bloggers for this campaign. Xiuxue’s blog got 40.000 visitors every day, which is almost similar to The Straits Times.

BATTLE OF SOCIAL MEDIA FOCUS ON THE GUSHCLOUD SMEAR CAMPAIGN

Quickly, the news is shared by followers of Xiaxue, and talked in the forums and on Twitter. They all ask SingTel to explain and call this behaviour « unethical ».

Wah... SingTel must come out sexplain Damn unethical...

The main media are sharing the information themselves, interviwing the other telcos to get their reaction.

BATTLE OF SOCIAL MEDIA WHO DID TELCOS ANSWERED?

•  On 17/03, Singtel and Gushcloud apologise for Gushcloud campaign. Some bloggers also apologise.

•  On 15/03, Singtel clarifies that they didn’t issue the brief

•  On 19/03, M1 and StarHub explore the possibility of furthur action, and Singtel termines services of Gushcloud, Gushcloud fires the employee involved

•  On 31/03, Gushcloud draws up rules on good social media marketing practices

BATTLE OF SOCIAL MEDIA TELCOS ACTIONS ON SOCIAL MEDIA

All telcos lost Facebook fans as Facebook has announced that they will be deleting all unactive fake accounts and therefore there is a drop in the number of fans. MyRepublic, quite young, is progressing fast and didn't see any drop as they probably didn't have any inactive accounts. M1 surprisingly still not on Twitter.

BATTLE OF SOCIAL MEDIA SO WHAT DO TELCOS DO??

MY Republic and Starhub increased E.R. on Facebook considerably, with new announcements (unlimited data), participation in events (IT Shows), quizzes, promotions for popular shows, etc. E.R. on Twitter decreased by half for Starhub and Singtel because no announcements or offers this month compared to last month. (*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

Both pages have increased their publications, and Starhub increased a lot the number of tweets but didn't get more engagement on Twitter, which questions the quality of the tweets. The decrease of Facebook fans is important and proves that many of them have been obtained by questionable methods. There’s a quick evolution of the CM strategies, which proves how important it is to follow competitors accounts regularly.

BATTLE OF SOCIAL MEDIA KEY TAKEWAYS – INDUSTRY LEVEL

1 ENGAGE PEOPLE CONSTANTLY - Constantly engaging people on social media results in a positive outlook for the brand, as they are your final customer. Therefore, engage them positively, specially through customer care.

2 LEARN FROM THE CROWD -  6,449 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?

Tesla Insights March 2015

•  315 top mentions analyzed between 1st March and 31st March, 2015

•  More representativity granted to Twitter and Facebook where the conversation is higher in volume. Sudden spike in conversation around 13 March on all platforms due to the Gushcloud smear campaign by Singtel.

WHO IS TALKING OF STARHUB? BRAND FOCUS

How are these 315 mentions split between topics? •  First of all, the Gushcloud-Singtel

campaign monopolized the conversation with 60% of the mentions!

•  The majority of the conversation COMPARES Starhub to other telcos, with 3 times more negative comments than positive!

•  PRODUCTS & SERVICES comes 2nd with 36.5% of top mentions (mainly announcements, promotions).

•  CUSTOMER CARE comes 3rd and PRICES comes 4th.

WHO’S TALKING OF 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 WORTH VS INDUSTRY? BRAND FOCUS

Nothing scary between 1st March and 31st March for Starhub, similar to last month. 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’s most popular mentions came from the Gushcloud campaign and how it has publicly accepted Singtel’s apology, as well as taking legal action against Singtel. Famous blogger Xiaxue has mentioned Starhub in most of her Facebook and blog posts. That’s why majority of the mentions are neutral for Starhub.

1 A lot of negative mentions are on the quality of service- specifically mobile broadband and home wifi (breakdowns, mistakes in invoicing) and poor customer care. However, some queries are answered over Twitter.

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Positive mentions came from tourists who enjoyed fast speed connectivity and some customers who compared Singtel to Starhub and preferred Starhub’s products and customer service.

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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

0%

Price Billing Product/Service

Customer Care

Comparison News/PR

+ - 7.7%

BRAND FOCUS

2.8%

12.5%

5.3%

14.7%

0%

2.6%

0%

0%

2.1%

7%

This table reads as follow: 12.5% of internet users who talked about the Price of Starhub products & services did so in a negative way (criticizing the brand or talking about it in a lesser way than competition) It’s alarming that last month’s analysis, there was more positive comments comparing with other brands while there are more negative comments this time.

Starhub publications on Twitter have increased by 135% compared to last month but the tweets are clearly not engaging as the Twitter number of retweets and comments have decreased by 16% ! Publications on FB have better engaged the fans with an increase in the conversation by 94%. No use at all of rich media (video) 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 in March. Usually about the Gushcloud smear campaign.

TOP INFLUENCERS MENTIONING STARHUB BRAND FOCUS

BATTLE OF SOCIAL MEDIA 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

Thank you !

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