Video Drives Costs Down for SPOC Automation

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With a little help from our team at FitzMartin, SPOC Automation was able to take a challenging situation (the COVID-19 lockdown) and turn it into an opportunity to consolidate and enhance their position in the market. As a result, they've greatly increased their views and email open rates, while actually reducing costs at the same time!

The Problem

SPOC Automation is a leader in manufacturing high-tech, automated technology for companies in the oil and gas industry. However, like many businesses, SPOC's normal processes were completely upended by the COVID-19 outbreak in March 2020. For example, SPOC's service representatives were no longer able to troubleshoot issues in the field with lockdown restrictions in place. This meant that a large percentage of SPOC's customer service protocols were wiped off the table, in an instant.

The Strategy

At first, the thrust of our strategy sessions with SPOC's leadership team revolved around how to cut costs. However, a new idea soon developed: Why not turn this obstacle into an opportunity by enhancing the tools and techniques used by the service team?

SPOC began compiling a "wishlist" of features and processes that would enhance customer service across the board. For instance, customers in lockdown would now have more time for training than they would under normal circumstances. SPOC and FitzMartin had already launched the "Two Minute Drive" (TMD) video series (a library of short videos featuring SPOC engineering, production, and tech support experts delivering personal micro-training on a variety of subjects). With that foundation already in place, SPOC's brain trust thought: Why not use this collection as the basis for an expanded self-service knowledge base?

Once that "wishlist" was completed, we surveyed the market to see which platforms were capable of implementing the new features and processes without charging "an arm and a leg." While we were at it, we also explored ways to break down the silos between SPOC's marketing, sales, and service departments so that everyone would be aligned to promote customer success.

The Solution

As a result, SPOC was able to reduce costs, enhance their content marketing, and improve their customer support mechanisms. SPOC's leadership also launched several key initiatives, including:

1. CRM consolidation

SPOC Automation was already using HubSpot's CRM. However, the company was also using other third-party tools, such as LiveChat and Qualtrics. SPOC management realized that these other third-party tools were not only extra expenses, but also contributed to a more fragmented workflow.

In response, SPOC consolidated their marketing, sales, and service processes on HubSpot's growth platform. This resulted in virtually instantaneous benefits throughout the organization. HubSpot's Service Hub had the capabilities to fulfill everything on SPOC's wishlist, all from one centralized platform — and without the cost of buying different technologies from individual vendors.

2. Expanded knowledge base

SPOC repurposed their existing video assets, such as the TMD series. For instance, SPOC partnered with Vidyard to segment the published videos into tertiary pieces, and then organized each clip according to its subject matter. They then incorporated these clips into SPOC's Knowledge Base, FAQ Library section.

As the TMD video collection grew, SPOC customer support reps were able to refer an increasing number of customers to the knowledge base to solve their problems. In many cases, this has eliminated hours of phone time for SPOC's service department — and, in some situations, even days of field work for techs.

With the combination of the HubSpot CRM platform and Vidyard, SPOC's marketing and customer service teams continue to explore any gaps in the knowledge base, and fill those needs with new videos. The expanded knowledge base has been such a smashing success that many of its videos are now the number #1 Google search result for certain keywords.

3. Improved chat workflow

To bolster the effectiveness of SPOC's knowledge base, we also explored changes to the company's chatbot processes. For instance, when a user types a specific keyword into the chat box (such as "fan"), the software will automatically present a relevant link from the knowledge base (e.g., an article entitled "How to Replace a Frame 9 Drive Fan," or a TMD video that addresses the topic).

The enhancement of this additional touch point has helped reduce the amount of service calls to SPOC's help desk. It has also increased customer satisfaction, and strengthened the company's brand image in the eyes of existing users.

4. Advanced reporting and analytics

SPOC Automation is now receiving advanced reporting and analytics like never before — and gleaning a wealth of actionable insights as a result. 

For instance, SPOC now has unprecedented visibility into how many searches their website is capturing for specific keywords. If they haven't yet developed an article or TMD video for that high-volume search phrase, then they make it a top priority moving forward.

The Results

Instead of shrinking from the many challenges that the pandemic presented to their business, SPOC, with the help of FitzMartin, turned those obstacles into opportunities. The positive results of this initiative speak for themselves:

  • By consolidating their processes on the HubSpot CRM platform, total views have increased by 968% since March 2020.
  • The number of videos created has increased by 151% — and SPOC doesn't just have more videos in its library, but those videos are actively engaging their customers, with a 208% increase in average attention span, and a 69.5% increase in usage.
  • SPOC Automation has reduced costs over this time frame. Check out this case study from HubSpot on how SPOC reported savings of $140,000 from field service visits in the first month alone.
  • There has been a 10% increase in email open rates over this period of time by leveraging video. Check out the case study by Vidyard here.
  • In summary, SPOC has greatly strengthened their market position and enhanced their reputation as a thought leader in the industry, gaining national attention for the efforts and effectiveness of this campaign in trade publications like Hart Energy, E&P Magazine and Oil and Gas Investor.

If you would like to explore opportunities to align your marketing, sales, and customer support teams, consolidate your processes, and reduce costs, reach out to our team of experts at FitzMartin today to start the conversation.

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