giffgaff's Strategy - The Underdog Leading in CX

UNDERSTAND TODAY. SHAPE TOMORROW.
LHBS // GIFFGAFF’S STRATEGY: THE UNDERDOG LEADING IN CX
the latest installment of our: Customer Value Series
GIFFGAFF’S
STRATEGY:
THE UNDERDOG
LEADING IN CX

ABOUT.
INTRODUCTION
UNDERSTAND TODAY. SHAPE TOMORROW. 2
Discover Deﬁne Develop Deliver
At LHBS, we believe that brand or business strategies need to be
prescriptive not just descriptive. A strategy needs to drive action
through meaningful Customer Value Propositions.
That’s why we work with our Customer Value Proposition
Canvas as a navigation system for bringing strategy to life.
We’ve created the Customer Value Series to analyze and share
how leading companies bring their Customer Value Propositions
to life through their core products, added value services, the
customer journey and communication.
This issue highlights giffgaff - a UK based telco with a
business model of community and exceptional customer
experience in its’ sights.
We hope you enjoy this deck and are able to be inspired by it in
your innovation process.
INTRODUCTIONLHBS // GIFFGAFF’S STRATEGY: THE UNDERDOG LEADING IN CX

INTRODU
CTION.
giffgaff’s network users are not only at the heart of their
business, they are their business. A consistent brand image has
brought them out on top in customer satisfaction in the UK,
outperforming all competitors including O2, EE and Virgin. How
are they continuing to encourage and harness the power of a
loyal and engaged community? How do they continue to deliver
mutually beneﬁcial value while staying true to their core values?
This report will introduce giffgaff’s core ideas, and explore their
Customer Value Proposition using our CVP Canvas to identify
the brand initiatives around product innovation, added-value
services, shopping experience, and communication that
contributed to exceptional customer experience.
LHBS THE UNCONVENTIONAL STRATEGY FIRM. We help
companies to understand emerging customer needs & expectations
and shape business models, brand strategies and customer
experiences to unlock future growth.
http://www.lhbs.com
Kathleen McCaffrey
Marketing Strategist at LHBS
lhbs.com | kmc@lhbs.com
INTRODUCTION
3

CONTENT.
CUSTOMER VALUE
CANVAS
CONCLUSIONS &
IMPLICATIONS
ABOUT
GIFFGAFF
CONTENT
4
Chapter 1 Chapter 2 Chapter 3

ABOUT
GIFFGAFF
Chapter 1
Quick facts about the company and its origins

ABOUT GIFFGAFF
What is giffgaff?
It’s a mobile virtual network
operator (MVNO), meaning they
have no high street presence,
they’re 100% online
No customers, only members who act
as customer service representatives,
marketers, R&D advisors and even
sales people
A SIM card provider and network
running on O2, and is a subsidiary
of Spain’s Telefonica
Source: giffgaff

The making of giffgaff
Founded in 2009 by Nav Thompson, who
was a brand strategist at O2 at the time
“giffgaff” is an ancient Scottish word
meaning “mutual giving”
At the start, the community was built
together with “Educators,” essentially
moderators to manage and educate the
community on how to behave
Community is not just at the heart of the
business, it is the business
Source: giffgaff
LHBS // GIFFGAFF’S STRATEGY: THE UNDERDOG LEADING IN CX ABOUT GIFFGAFF

They believe in…
8Source: giffgaff
Encouraging all users they are “free to go, free to stay”
Community and empowering people
Listening to & involving their members
Cheaper, simpler and fairer communicating

…and they live their values
9Source: giffgaff
giffgaff once stopped advertising for several months as they
feared they were growing too fast. They’re always putting their
current user base ﬁrst
Last year the company handed out over £1 million to proactive
members who helped spread the word and referred new users
“giffgaff is the most customer-centric business in the world. There
are very few things we do that we don’t talk to our customers
about.” - Mike Fairman, CEO

Weaving crowd communication into their
business model, giffgaff aren’t just constantly
brainstorming, they’re leveraging the power of
crowdstorming at scale.
- “crowdstorming” coined by Bastian Unterberg, Peter Ryder, and Shaun Abrahamson in the
book: Crowdstorm: The Future of Innovation, Ideas, and Problem Solving
Source: giffgaff

UNDERSTAND TODAY. SHAPE TOMORROW. 11Source: European Communications
They’re championing
customer service
among telcos
in the UK

UNDERSTAND TODAY. SHAPE TOMORROW. 12Source: lithium
giffgaff are pioneering with a culture of data…
"We've been getting our behavioral data in order…
We are looking to add more attitudinal data now. We
want to understand our members better [and
understand] what their needs are."
- Helen Mannion, head of business
intelligence at giffgaff

…and no call-center
“It’s pretty clear that the modern consumer wants to
be deeply involved in the products and companies
that they are loyal to. This is particularly true if they
feel they have a voice and can help make them be
even more successful."
- Helen Mannion, head of business
intelligence at giffgaff
Source: lithium

REPORT TITLE // IMPLICATIONS.
Their support network are their
customers.
But since reporting that they hit
1m subscribers in 2013, today’s
exact number is not known.
Staff numbers are also not known,
but at this time in 2013 there were
approximately 22 full-time
members.
14Source: giffgaff

How are they benefitting from a community model?
“A few years ago, Apple changed the size of its SIM cards.
Apple is very secretive in the way it works and we didn’t know
that was going to happen. Overnight, our SIM cards didn’t fit in
the latest, sexiest device and it was going to take us two or three
months to change our supply chain to make them fit.
Within a couple of days, our members discovered you can go
online and buy stamps that converted the new-shape SIM cards
and they set up a website to buy these new SIMs. We thought it
was so good we put links on our homepage to go to it. None of
that is possible without working with our members.”
- Mike Fairman, CEO at giffgaff or “Gaffer”
Source: questia

REPORT TITLE // IMPLICATIONS.
Explore giffgaff’s Customer Value Proposition and see
how they deliver value through their core products,
added value services, shopping experience and
communication.
16

CUSTOMER VALUE
CANVAS
Chapter 2
giffgaff’s initiatives

The better a company manages the interrelation
between their products, services,
experience and communication,
the more value it will create for its customers and
in turn, generate value from its customers.
CUSTOMER VALUE CANVAS
18

Customer Value Canvas®
CORE PRODUCT
How might your Customer Value Proposition inspire or impact the
performance or quality of your core product?
ADDED-VALUE SERVICES
How might your Customer Value Proposition inspire or inﬂuence
additional services to simplify or enhance that create added value
around the consumption or usage of your product?
COMMUNICATION & TOUCH POINTS
How might you create communication that  
delivers your Customer Value Proposition and  
not just promises it?
SHOPPING EXPERIENCE
How might your Customer Value Proposition
inspire a smoother, more pleasant customer
experience in your omnichannel touch points.
CUSTOMER
VALUE PROPOSITION
A clear, concise and compelling
articulation of how the needs that are
important to the customer are satisﬁed by
the company / business unit.
Designed for: Designed by: Date: Version:
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
How does giffgaff facilitate and
deliver services that enrich and
simplify the lives of their customers
around their core product and
service?
Which products and services do
giffgaff offer?
How does giffgaff solve real customer
problems with their service design?
How is giffgaff growing their core
capabilities of being a community-run
telco?
How does giffgaff make searching for,
ordering and interacting with their
products & services a uniquely
positive experience?
What kind of content does giffgaff
create that leads people to enjoy
consumption and sharing, rather
than wanting to escape the
advertisements?
CUSTOMER VALUE CANVASLHBS // GIFFGAFF’S STRATEGY: THE UNDERDOG LEADING IN CX

LHBS Put the Title of the Report here
HOW TO.
GIFFGAFF’S
CUSTOMER
VALUE
PROPOSITION.
Customer Value Proposition
Communicating should be
cheaper, fairer and simpler,
and power should lie with the
people.

CORE PRODUCT
Which products does giffgaff create?
How is giffgaff growing their core capabilities of being a crowd-run
telco?

UNDERSTAND TODAY. SHAPE TOMORROW.Source:
Members, Not
Customers
giffgaff are a telco built by the community, for the
community, and have no customers, only members
Explore sign
giffgaff uphold strong community values which they
demonstrate in a number of ways. One being that
they never refer to users of their product as
“customers,” but instead as “members.”
Community members, or “giffgaffers” as they’re
nicknamed, have been involved in idea generation,
community support, recommending and recruiting
for the telco from the start. As a result, the company
have been able to withstand changes in consumer
demands, trends and even competitor moves.
22

Data Plans to Suit
Everyone
As a result of community idea suggestion, giffgaff
offer a range of “goodybags” to suit every type of
consumer
Explore sign
After the community rallied around the idea of
having more personalized data plans, giffgaff now
have seven plans ranging from £5 to £20, with a few
add-on options.
They name their packages “goody bags,” and for
those uncertain about how much data and minutes to
purchase, they have an online calculator which asks
about usage of social, email, apps, video and music to
give the best recommendation, and not simply the
highest.
23

Recommend, Recruit,
Earn
Revolutionary telco giffgaff enable members to
earn money through simply recommending the
service
Explore sign
To encourage social chat and encourage
subscriptions, giffgaff reward referrals by current
members with payback points.
There is no limit to how many new members people
can bring on board, and only requires the recruiter to
order SIMs to their address, hand them out and
share a personalized SIM order page to make sure
they are rewarded for each subsequent subscription.
As more members are recruited, earning potential
increases and more support is offered.
24

giffgaff Have No
Customer Service
The telco doing things differently are topping
competitors in customer satisfaction despite
having no customer service department
Explore sign
With an undisclosed number of subscribers, giffgaff -
the community run mobile network - are ahead of
their competitors in the UK when it comes to
customer satisfaction scores, even topping O2,
Virgin Mobile, 3 and many others.
Members answer queries on behalf of the network in
forums, and the more involved they are, the more
points they can earn which can be converted into
cash, credit or charity donations.
25

How does giffgaff facilitate and deliver services that enrich and simplify
the lives of their members around their core products?

Gadget Recycling
Marketplace
giffgaff has it’s very own exclusive-to-members
marketplace for selling unwanted handsets
Explore sign
giffgaff made the move to set up a marketplace
exclusively for the network’s members. The pre-
owned phones marketplace enables users to recycle
their old handset and make some extra cash.
The platform ensures all devices sold are unlocked,
fully tested and cleansed of data, offers a six month
warranty and gives the seller an upfront price that
they will receive, as well as the packaging to deliver
the handset safely.
27

Translate Financial
Jargon Plugin
giffgaff offer a Chrome plugin to translate
ﬁnancial terms or “money jargon” into layman’s
terms
Explore sign
giffgaff money now offers a Google Chrome plugin.
When the user activates the plugin and hovers over a
term or phrase from the world of ﬁnance, a box
appears with a translation into layman’s terms.
For example, if the user hovers their mouse over the
term “APR”, it offers the following translation: “The
annual cost of your borrowing. It takes account of
interest, fees, & frequency of payments, so enables
you to compare different loans.”
28

The Pokemon Go Add-
On
In the midst of the Pokemon Go trend, giffgaff
released a useful mapping tool for players
Explore sign
In order to help out the (many) Pokemon Go players
last year, giffgaff released a mapping tool in the UK
named ﬁnd.catch.share.
They partnered with the company what3words, a
geomapping system to enable players to locate and
catch Pokemon, as well as showing them nearby
charging stations and food and drink locations.
29
LHBS // DOMINO’S STRATEGY: FROM PIZZA TO TECH GIANTLHBS // GIFFGAFF’S STRATEGY: THE UNDERDOG LEADING IN CX

Credit Card
Comparison
As part of their platform to educate young people
on ﬁnance, giffgaff compare offers impartial and
personalized comparison of various credit cards
Explore sign
giffgaff compare is a free service allowing anyone to
compare credit cards, no matter their credit history.
They vow to remain impartial and honest with their
recommendations, with simple and clear information
about options.
An online calculator is used to discover the cards
someone would most likely be approved for, and does
not impact their current credit rating.
30

Personal Loans
giffgaff teamed up with RateSetter to offer
ﬂexible loans for young people to avoid borrowing
from banks
Explore sign
With everything clearly articulated and no ﬁnancial
jargon to battle with, giffgaff’s loan service is tailored
to the younger generation. They hope to be the
better alternative for young people to borrow money
quickly and hassle-free, than going to their banks.
They teamed up with RateSetter, the UK’s leading
peer-to-peer lenders for this venture, and offer users
the option to decide on their own repayment plan.
31

SHOPPING EXPERIENCE
How does giffgaff make ordering, topping up and keeping control over
their tariff a uniquely positive experience?

Switch Monthly With
Freedom
One of the greatest beneﬁts at giffgaff is the
freedom to switch between pricing plans monthly
Explore sign
giffgaff are known for offering their members
freedom. With no contracts, people are free to switch
between pricing plans each month, and an online
calculator even recommends the best option based
on how much time someone spends on various
activities.
They insist their recommendations are void of up-
selling, and are driven instead by the real needs of
individual consumers.
33

My giffgaff App
giffgaff members have complete control over their
account with the "My giffgaff app," which also has
that community feel
Explore sign
The giffgaff app enables members to access almost
all services offered by the provider.
They are able to check their account, buy pricing
plans and top up, ﬁnd friends on the network to
exchange free calls and texts (a service available for
three months after every purchase or top up) and
join in with the community on forums and the Idea
Exchange platform.
34

International SIM
Ordering and
Activation
New joiners to the giffgaff network can now order
and activate their SIM card even before traveling
to the UK
Explore sign
After members of the giffgaff community suggested
international delivery of SIM cards, the network ran
with it and now offer this as a service.
Shipping SIM cards internationally takes up to 5
working days, and users are able to activate their
plans from wherever they are in the world to begin
using it as soon as they touch down in the UK. The
activation, topping-up and auto-recurring their tariffs
can all be done using an international credit card.
35

TOUCH-POINTS &
COMMUNICATION
What kind of content does giffgaff create that leads people to enjoy
consumption and sharing, rather than wanting to escape the
advertisements?

Voting on the Next Big
Idea
Members of giffgaff can submit ideas, vote on
others and see exactly where their suggestion
goes
Explore sign
giffgaff is known for having an incredibly involved
community of members, not customers helping to
run the show. Their voting system ensures all ideas
are considered and people can see their suggestion
move through this consideration process.
The Idea Exchange is accessible only to members,
and offers continuous overview of the number of
ideas submitted, implemented and in progress. Every
idea takes no longer than thirty days to move
through the process.
37

Unlock A Phone,
Unlock A Chicken
This campaign was in support of giffgaff’s
“freedom” value, supporting the worthy cause of
freeing battery hens
Explore sign
giffgaff teamed up with the UK ventriloquist duo
Orville and Keith to free more people from contracts
and let them know that unlocking a phone is not
illegal, and to also re-home battery chickens.
When a person unlocks their phone and joins giffgaff
via the Chicken campaign, the network ensures a
battery hen is re-homed. The campaign was
communicated in the form of a video of a rap by the
ventriloquist act, named The CONtract feat. K-
Orville.
38

Short Series on the
Challenges of Youth
A three-part series was released by the giffgaff
network covering important issues affecting
young people today
Explore sign
The three-part series co-created by giffgaff and VICE
aimed to highlight the biggest issues facing young
people today. Named “Perspectives,” the
documentaries explored the housing crisis, mental
health and the economy.
It followed individuals who’s lives had been affected
by these challenges. Abi Pearl, Head of Advertising at
giffgaff said the series was a result of “honing in on
our desire to take a fresh, different look at things, and
look for other solutions outside of the norm.”
39

Live, Interactive Street
Advert
This live street advertisement by the giffgaff
network involved multiple actors and stunt-
people, and encapsulated “freedom”
Explore sign
Continuing giffgaff’s quest to spread the message of
freedom, they set up an advert to be acted out live on
the streets of London.
Beginning with a billboard which passers-by could
interact with, it would select people at random, and
based on how they had responded initially they
would ﬁnd themselves in a dramatic sequence of
events which included various actors including
abseilers, gangsters, getaway-drivers and even
Roman Centurions.
40

Epic Horror-Movie
Adverts
giffgaff have become known for their Halloween
movie-style shorts, encouraging people to “end
the nightmare” of being trapped in contracts
Explore sign
After observing the celebration of Halloween
increasing year on year in the UK, giffgaff teamed up
with award winning director Ninian Doff at Pulse
ﬁlms.
Combined with their well-known sense of humor, the
result were hilariously over-the-top reactions to
something as simple as a long-term contract, with the
feel and look of a high quality horror movie. The
movie-style ads are shared across their social media
channels and in Nomad and Pearl and Dean Cinemas.
41

From Cutting Contracts
To Cutting Hair
A giffgaff roadshow demonstrated their contract-
cutting with a metaphor, whilst targeting their
ideal audience
Explore sign
giffgaff took to the road with three young
hairdressers from the Total Barber Academy to offer
free haircuts to young people, particularly targeting
University students all over the UK.
Named the #MopChop roadshow, the campaign was
inspired by the concept that giffgaff are a “contract-
cutting” provider. They were able to combine a ﬁtting
metaphor for one of their biggest beneﬁts, as well as
offering additional - albite unusual - value, especially
for students.
42

GIFFGAFF’S CVP
SUMMARY

Customer Value Canvas®
CORE PRODUCT
How might your Customer Value Proposition inspire or impact the
performance or quality of your core product?
How might your Customer Value Proposition inspire or inﬂuence
additional services to simplify or enhance that create added value
around the consumption or usage of your product?
COMMUNICATION & TOUCH POINTS
How might you create communication that  
delivers your Customer Value Proposition and  
not just promises it?
SHOPPING EXPERIENCE
How might your Customer Value Proposition
inspire a smoother, more pleasant customer
experience in your omnichannel touch points.
CUSTOMER
VALUE PROPOSITION
Communicating should be cheaper, fairer
and simpler, and power should lie with the
people.
Designed for: Designed by: Date: Version:
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
SIM cards and mobile tariffs
Gadget Recycling Marketplace
The Pokemon Go Add-On
Translate Financial Jargon Plugin
Credit Card Comparison
Personal Loans
Switch Monthly With Freedom
My Giffgaff App
International SIM Ordering and Activation
Voting on the Next Big Idea
Unlock a Phone, Unlock a Chicken
Short Series on the Challenges of Youth
Live, Interactive Street Advert
Epic Horror-Movie Adverts
From Cutting Contracts, to Cutting Hair

CONCLUSIONS &
IMPLICATIONS
What can we learn from giffgaff?
Chapter 3
CONCLUSIONS & IMPLICATIONSLHBS // GIFFGAFF’S STRATEGY: THE UNDERDOG LEADING IN CX

ONE
Crowdstorming, the process of gathering big ideas from big
crowds, is transforming how we acquire consumer insights to
inform decisions and the speed at which we can identify and
answer customer needs.
CONCLUSIONS & IMPLICATIONS
The business world is becoming less about the big beating the small, and more about the fast
beating the slow. While Artiﬁcial Intelligence is gaining momentum in collecting deeper customer
insights to fuel product creation and brand development, nothing beats talking directly to the
customer. Crowdstorming leverages the efﬁciency of the internet, taps external talent and does so
at a much lower cost than traditional methods.

TWO
To fully commit to bringing customer co-creation into product
and customer experience development, the community must
be anchored to the core enterprise system.
Encouraging consistent and meaningful engagement and feedback from customers is simply not
possible if the same is not given out. Mutuality is crucial. This means committing to delivering quick
feedback, active implementation and monitoring of changing consumer demands and desires to
inform business decisions. These decisions should continue to deliver value to customers and
sustain brand loyalty as a result of feeling they continue to share the same core values. The activity
and participation of members should also help them feel that they share in the success of a
business.

THREE
The power of shared values is unwavering, as is living core values
by shaping every communication, development and business
decision around them.
64% of consumers cited shared values as the main reason they have a relationship with a
brand. There’s a trend in shifting away from bold statements about simply being better than
the competition, to proving this through bold statements about differentiating beneﬁts and
visible passion of core values. giffgaff are evidence that fully committing to core values and
to creating the ideal business their customers envision is a path to success.

Discover
ABOUT
LHBS. Define Develop Deliver
We are an unconventional strategy firm that helps clients to
better understand today and successfully shape tomorrow. LHBS
has extensive experience & expertise in business development,
brand building and customer experience. The firm works across all
major industries for clients from the FT Global 500, German
Mittelstand and fast growing startups.
http://www.lhbs.com
ABOUT
We work with legacy organizations to adapt their customer value
proposition to meet emerging customer expectations. Together with our
clients we discover business opportunities and deliver integrated customer
offers for products, services, experiences and communication.
http://www.lhbs.com

LHBS Put the Title of the Report here
HUB.
This case study has been created with the help of signmesh.
signmesh innovation hub is a tailored dashboard of curated insights and
business cases to keep your company ahead of the learning curve and
inspire ongoing innovation.
signmesh.com
SIGNMESH
50
REQUEST
A DEMO.

Die in dieser Präsentation dokumentierten Gedanken und Vorschläge sind geistiges Eigentum der  
LHBS Consulting Berlin GmbH und unterliegen den geltenden Urhebergesetzen. Die unauthorisierte Nutzung,  
die ganze oder teilweise Vervielfältigung sowie jede Weitergabe an Dritte ist nicht gestattet.
LHBS Consulting Berlin GmbH
Köpenicker Straße 154
10997 Berlin Germany
IMPRINT
www.lhbs.com
THANK YOU
51

giffgaff's Strategy - The Underdog Leading in CX

Recomendados

Recomendados

Más contenido relacionado

La actualidad más candente

La actualidad más candente (20)

Similar a giffgaff's Strategy - The Underdog Leading in CX

Similar a giffgaff's Strategy - The Underdog Leading in CX (20)

Más de LHBS

Más de LHBS (20)

Último

Último (20)

giffgaff's Strategy - The Underdog Leading in CX