Case Study: Lenovo Takes Ownership Of Social Media To Reduce Customer Service Costs

When Lenovo acquired the IBM PC Computing division, it saw that customers were talking about its products in third-party forums like notebookreview.com and thinkpads.com, and it worried that it was being left out of these important conversations. Lenovo took ownership of the challenge and launched its own community. Using a peer-to-peer support community, Lenovo garnered critical worldwide views of the customer experience for the corporate-oriented LenovoThink and the more consumer-oriented Lenovo Idea brands. The results have been stellar: By owning the initiative, Lenovo customer service professionals ascertained how to align marketing, sales, service, and other departments to enhance the customer experience. This alignment resulted in a 20% reduction in laptop support call rates, an increase in agent productivity, a shortened problem resolution cycle, and an increase in Net Promoter Scores. This has led to better products and a reduction in support costs.