TECH
Viral Effect are world Customer Service Index leaders
WORDS : JULIE BURNISTON . PICTURE : MARTIN WALKER .
Leading - MD James Pennington outside Viral Effect ’ s Boho Four HQ .
POLE POSITION
It was celebration time for social
marketing agency Viral Effect when they topped the Twitter Customer Service Index , taking the crown from long-term holders , a certain Microsoft . The Boho Four-based agency led by MD James ‘ JP ’ Pennington have consistently been number one in what is known as the Food Index for their work with the likes of coffee specialists Costa and pizza experts Domino ’ s but had always hovered in the top ten for overall customer service .
This time , however , the hard work paid off as Viral Effect sailed past global powerhouses NatWest , American Express and Santander , staying in first place for a full week and dipping in and out of the pole position ever since . “ It ’ s no mean feat ,” smiles Jamie . “ Considering we are a small agency from ‘ over the border ’ in a small town , to beat the financial resources of a company like Microsoft shows just what determination , hard work and being powered by Middlesbrough can achieve !”
The positions on the Customer Service Index , which is curated by helphandles . com , are based on response time and response rate - how many people Viral Effect ’ s team of social warriors respond to and how quickly they do it .
“ During Covid , we were very lucky that Domino ’ s – one of our major clients
– stayed open to feed the nation ,” says Jamie .
“ But that meant we had to staff up heavily as we were getting a lot more inbounds on Domino ’ s social channels . You can imagine that with extra orders came extra complaints and inquiries .
“ We were up to ten times as busy on a Friday night as pre-Covid , so we had to adapt very quickly . Whereas we might have two strong people on the social team on a Friday night , we had five on . Any staff member not on the social team was put on to the rota to do the local pages .
“ Alisia Evci , our head of social team , had her work cut out , but she did a phenomenal job to get the team at such a high level consistently .”
Attention to detail from the social team is something that Viral Effect pride themselves on .
“ We do a lot of typing tests to keep on the ball ,” says Jamie .
“ We won ’ t use copy and paste because that ’ s robotic and you can ’ t be robotic on a public-facing platform . Each message to each client has to be unique and personal in some way .
“ So , while social warrior is an entry level job and perfect for students given that it ’ s a weekend and after-hours role , you still need to have understanding and patience .”
Despite the fantastic achievements of Viral Effect over the last few months , Jamie and co-owner Mike Racz have been in discussion since October last year about moving the company to the next level and hiring experienced management staff to bring in fresh ideas .
“ The market is maturing at a faster pace than a lot of other industries ,” says Jamie . “ There are brilliant people out there who work for other organisations who can bring different skill sets and ideas to the table , and that ’ s what we want .”
Currently , Viral Effect are “ aggressively hiring ” after already finding two new members of staff and promoting one from within the ranks .
“ Kate Price is our new success manager ,” says Jamie . “ We ’ ve also recently taken on Jack Bower , who is a fantastic videographer , and we ’ ve promoted former account manager Amerdeep Mann to project manager to streamline the way the account management team deal with the digital team .
“ We would like to find an operations manager and two new community warriors to finish the team .”
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