Energy that changes the world, Kind Words Ringback Tone
GS Caltex
Issue 45 | December 2017
Agency
AdQUA Interactive Seoul
Creative Team
Executive Creative Director Hunchul Chun Creative Director Hyunkyoon Kim Copywriters Ayoung Yoon, Olivia Sangjee Park
Production Team
Producer Dongkyeong Lee
Other Credits
Account Executives Junyoung Lee, Minwoo Lee, Hyunwoo Nam Media Planner Sooyeon Im Media Buying Seungkwan Hong, Seunghyun Yoon, Sooyeon Park
Date
July 2017
Background
In call centres everywhere, including Korea, the operators were often subjected to obscenities and abuse from angry customers.
While some employers tried to deal with the problem by offering massage and counselling, no real solution had been found.
Idea
GS Caltex was a South Korean energy company, whose employees in their call centres were feeling increasingly stressed by their jobs. As well as being called rude names, there were even incidents of sexual harassment.
'Kind Words Ringback Tone' was created to remind callers that the people they were talking to were loving daughters, mothers and wives.
When they rang through, they were greeted by an automated response, an elderly man's voice, saying: "My kind, hard-working daughter will be on the line shortly..."
Or a little girl saying, "My mum, who I love more than anyone in the world, will help you soon." Or a man, "My dear wife will answer your call shortly."
Actual family members of the operators made the recordings to remind callers subtly that they were talking to human beings, people like themselves.
Results
A video was created, which showed how the new approach not only softened how callers spoke to operators but how it made operators feel less stressed.
After 10 days, stress levels had decreased by 54.2%. Feelings of being respected increased by 25%. The number of customers saying nice things increased 8%.
The video was first released to GS Caltex's Facebook page and has been viewed nearly three million times through organic and paid reach. On YouTube, the video received over 20,000 organic views.
Our Thoughts
GS Caltex have a relatively new campaign running in several markets around the theme of wanting to energise the world.
This is an important part of that campaign, even if it isn't specifically about their products and services. The implicit communication is, if the company can bring positive energy to solve a social problem like telephone rage, imagine what else they can do to help solve some of the world's pressing problems. What is also great about this idea is to learn how many other organisations are adopting it.
Now that's real flattery for a creative person, when your idea gets stolen.