Executive summary

Sprint Corporation is the fourth largest telecommunications company in the U.S. with over 60 million customers. Sprint had its own branded communities with vast amounts of information, but customers struggled to navigate to relevant content, and they lost 80% of their community traffic over a four-year period. Sprint knew that their community was not being leveraged as the strong care channel it could be, so they enlisted Khoros. The brand needed to migrate its huge volume of community data into the new community and make the experience seamless for users. Taking that big of a plunge would make anyone nervous, but they did it in six weeks.

Before Sprint onboarded Khoros, they didn’t have the platform or support they needed to properly meet the needs of customers, and Sprint didn’t have the analytics available to understand where the community needed improvement. Customers who visited the Sprint Community felt frustrated and unable to find the content or 1:1 help needed to answer their questions. After all, there were 10 million posts, 10 years of data, and 3.2 million members there and the Sprint team didn’t have the resources to help customers effectively navigate it all. Sprint also wanted to engage with customers by reaching out to them on Facebook and Twitter, but the Sprint Community wasn’t prepared to receive them. When Sprint onboarded Khoros Care, that all changed. Sprint developed a highly trained team of digital customer care agents who are also fluent in brand voice: the SMARTeam (Social Media Advocacy and Resolution Team). The SMARTeam works in Sprint’s community engaging with customers, and they are also out on other channels working to bring people back to Sprint’s community to find answers to their questions. With Khoros, the SMART team can quickly and easily respond to customers at scale, create and curate relevant content, increase call deflection, and reduce average handle times for calls. Sprint also needed the ability to measure and report on the activity of their community, and Khoros provided them with the tools to do so.

After onboarding Khoros, Sprint gained deep insight into their community’s performance. Most notably, they saw a 200% increase in traffic to their community. With Khoros, Sprint can now evaluate the performance of its community and measure engagement — and they know for certain that they are getting their community members back. The Sprint Community is now optimized for users to find the resources they need or speak to an agent to solve their problems. Today, if you visit the Sprint Community, you’ll easily find what you’re looking for without being overwhelmed with content, connect readily with other customers, find helpful brand enthusiasts and agents waiting to respond, and discover helpful content tailored to your preferences. These improvements have led to a faster process for users to get the help they need and a 200% increase in call deflection.

“We are now engaging in 163% more digital conversations in less than 15 minutes.”

— Allison Fasching 
Sr. Social Engagement & Community Strategist, Sprint