Eastern Communications wins Asian Experience Award for customer experience

It has created a task force to address customer needs.

It’s difficult to experience humanity when daily transactions and activities are conducted digitally. Our computer screens and phones create a digital divide at school, at work, and at home. The country’s rapid shift to digital activities often feels like an unseen wall has been erected, one that ironically keeps us apart but offers us the world in the palm of our hands. 

To remedy this, telecommunications and ICT solutions company Eastern Communications developed a two-pronged philosophy that the company has continued to stand by for over a century. It calls this its “high tech and high touch” approach in which its employees are encouraged to emphasise the human connection in the company’s dealings.

The company’s employees, fondly known as “Ka-Eastern” have created a culture of caring. This unique brand of caring extends to three parties: fellow Ka-Eastern employees, the community around them, and of course, the customers that feel like partners and family. These remain the core focus of every Ka-Eastern's Heart of Service, as the employees commit to offering unparalleled and authentic customer service. 

It was because of this that Eastern Communications took home the Philippines Customer Experience of the Year - Telecommunications category win at the Asian Experience Awards 2023 for the launch of its 143 Ka-Eastern: Our Heart of Service Campaign. The campaign used the Heart of Service approach and integrated it into various efforts to improve the customer journey and keep stakeholders happy. The company’s customer experience team sparked change through a special taskforce called the “CX Game Changer” group, which was guided by the company’s executives and leaders across the organisation to launch relevant programmes.

One such programme is the migration of its subscribers that use Eastern’s existing copper facilities, updating their connection to fiber-optic cables for stronger connectivity. This initiative immensely impacted the company’s number of incident tickets received per month and has decreased by 69.14%.

The company also revisited and improved key customer related processes such as the reconnection of disconnected accounts upon payment. Through this, Eastern Communications managed to improve its SLA from five days to 3.08 hours, which significantly impacted its volume on follow-ups received from customers, going from 51.49% down to 3.93%. Enlisting every employee to champion customer satisfaction, training programmes were rolled out to instill best professional practices when it comes to servicing customers and improving ease of business. 

In spite of challenges, the CX team and the CX Game Changer task force leaders triumphed in meeting the company’s commitment to customers with an increased CSAT score of 90.92% vs. the Customer Operations Performance Center Benchmark target of 85%.

As of today, Eastern Communications’ Net Promoter Score is 48.84%, up from 40.20% in 2021. Its overall revenue grew to 16% and a 313% increase in ICT solutions revenue performance compared to 2020. To keep customers happy and increase brand affinity, the company created and continues its award-winning Link VIP Club programme, where its members receive service perks and privileges and the year- long programme included access to educational expos and workshops, and exclusive events for members.

“As we expand our footprint to provide services to unserved and underserved areas in Luzon and Visayas, this will bring us a larger number of customers to be served…We will continue to change and progress for both external and internal customers to remain loyal and continue doing business with us as their preferred service provider rather than seeking out alternatives,” the company said.

The Asian Experience Awards seeks to recognise the enterprising initiatives of companies that delivered meaningful brand experiences to their stakeholders.

The Asian Experience Awards is presented by Asian Business Review Magazine. To view the full list of winners, click here. If you want to join the 2024 awards programme and be acclaimed for providing meaningful brand experiences to stakeholders, please contact Jane Patiag at [email protected].