Achieving a 4.8 out of 5 on Online Review, With Anne Tetamore and Michael Wynschenk

How can your utility achieve a 4.8 out of 5 stars on Google reviews? Hunter Communication’s Anne Tetamore, VP of marketing, and CEO Michael Wynschenk tell us how valuing both customers and employees plays a key role into achieving success.

What is The StoryConnect Podcast?

StoryConnect features interviews with marketers, communicators, CEOs and other leaders at cooperative and independent broadband companies, electric cooperatives and municipal power providers. The goal of the podcast is to help listeners discover ideas to shape their stories and connect with their customers. It is produced by Pioneer Utility Resources.

Intro:
A production of Pioneer Utility Resources.

StoryConnect, helping communicators discover ideas to shape their
stories and connect with their customers.

Andy Johns:
What does it take for a broadband service provider to get a 4.8
out of five on their online reviews?

That's what we'll be talking about on this episode of
StoryConnect The Podcast.

My name is Andy Johns, your host with Pioneer.

And I'm joined on this episode by a couple of folks I'm excited
to share.

First off, and Anne Tetamore is the VP of marketing with Hunter
Communications.

Anne thanks so much for joining me.

Anne Tetamore:
Thank you so much for having me.

Andy Johns:
We're also joined by Michael Wynschenk, who is the CEO at Hunter.

So Michael, thanks for joining.

Michael Wynschenk:
Oh, our pleasure.

Andy Johns:
So there's a lot to get into.

We're here, like we've said with some of these other episodes,
at kind of the epicenter of rural broadband and independent

broadband providers here at the Calix ConneXions Conference.

Like we've said with all the other live episodes, anything that
you may hear is ambiance – it's not background noise.

Because we're right here where a lot of stuff is going on.

But I wanted to get into the talk that Michael gave this
morning, and I think, I'm glad to have both of you guys here to

discuss it, because you guys, 4.8 out of five is outstanding.

You guys were highlighted for some of the other great work that
you're doing.

And, you know, I think a good place to start, because there's a
lot I want to get into, but it's just to talk about the way, in

the discussion, you guys have a really strong sense of "why" and
a really strong sense of purpose.

And that just doesn't happen accidentally.

Do you mind discussing a little bit about what that why is and
how you all arrived there?

Anne Tetamore:
Sure. The why is definitely our customers, right?

They are why we do this every day.

I started with Hunter Communications in February 2021.

So mid-pandemic, right?

We were still in the thick of it.

I remember my first day at the company, we had a branding
session with me and Michael and members of our senior leadership

team. First day, brand new.

Welcome to the company. Jump right in.

A new marketing team member.

Andy Johns:
Right.

Anne Tetamore:
And we discussed, you know, our why – why do we do this for our
customers?

And then we moved down the line and talked to all of our
employees as well and surveyed all of our employees.

Why do you do this for our customers?

Andy Johns:
That's an important step.

Anne Tetamore:
And what makes us different, and why are we different?

So then through that, we were able to develop our mission
statement, our new brand values and really put, you know, pen to

paper and communicate the why to our employees.

So then that could also be delivered to our customers, and they
could do that in their every day from when you call in and talk

to a member of our customer service team to when one of our
technicians is in your home or in your business.

It's just so important for us to always remember to put our
customers first by building better connections.

Right? "Better connections start here," is our tagline.

Andy Johns:
It's a good one.

Anne Tetamore:
And it's not just our internet connections.

It's the connections that we have with each other as employees,
and then the connections that we also have with our customers.

And most importantly, the connections that we let our customers
have with each other.

Andy Johns:
Through the service.

Anne Tetamore:
Through through the service. Yeah.

Andy Johns:
Perfect. Perfect.

And I think that's so important.

And both steps of that are important.

Not only is it the, you know, knowing it and taking the steps to
do that, but communicating that to the employees.

So, you know, when it gets to an organization wide thing like
that, Michael, was that something that it took a lot of work to

get people to buy into?

Or did everybody in the organization pretty much get aligned
pretty quickly on that being the why?

Michael Wynschenk:
Well, it'd be great to say everybody jumped in into the pool all
at the same time.

Andy Johns:
Sure.

Michael Wynschenk:
But Andy, you know, it doesn't quite work that way.

The key was first to get our our leadership team and then the
management group underneath them.

And at the end of the day, it is really about the culture and
it's about how we

treat each other.

If we treat each other with respect, regardless of level, if we
treat our technicians with respect.

Because when you think about the broadband industry, most
customers only see one person.

Andy Johns:
True.

Michael Wynschenk:
It's the technician coming in the house.

Keep in mind, this is during the pandemic, when people were
working from home and didn't want any strangers to come into the

house.

Andy Johns:
Right.

Michael Wynschenk:
So what tools did we give the technicians?

How did we help them with the communication skills?

How did we create an environment?

So when a customer experience was concluded and the technician
left the home, the

customer felt that was something I haven't felt before.

And so they would then give good, good reviews.

And candidly, we asked technicians, how did I do?

And if they said really good.

Well, if you don't mind, could you post that on Google?

And then they'd hold their breath on the drive back to the
office saying, "I hope it was a real good score." And at

the end of the day, it's just an example of how a small company
can rally the

employees to rally around the customer to have a really solid
experience.

I don't think we started this by saying, "You know what?

We need a great Google score." We just want feedback from our
customers.

And then we compared our Google score to our competitors.

And we said, I think we're on to something.

Something's going right between the time the customer placed the
order and the time the technician completed the order.

Andy Johns:
And I think you said, during your session, that you guys are a
4.8, and some of your competitors are as low as a 1.1 to 3 range.

Michael Wynschenk:
You said it well, so I didn't have to say it in larger podcast
land public.

But yeah, and I think that's because we're relatively new to the
residential business.

And when you're really new to something, you have that passion,
and you have that determination.

What is the benchmark?

Which we discovered was not all that high, and then let's keep
doing better.

And that's how we grow our business.

Andy Johns:
Now, Anne, there's been a lot of talk about Net Promoter Score
here.

And you know, it's one of the things that I've been in the
industry about 12 years and 11 or 12 years ago, that wasn't

something I felt like that was talked about a lot among the
rural broadband providers or the independent broadband providers

. But it's something that's talked about a lot.

For you guys, you said the the main metric, you know, of course
that's important, but the main thing you guys are looking at is

the Google reviews and social media reviews.

Anne Tetamore:
Absolutely.

Andy Johns:
Tell me a little bit about that decision, for that to be the one
thing to to hang it on.

Anne Tetamore:
And I think Michael said it really well this morning, right when
I go out to a restaurant and I want to know what's the service

like, how's the food? I'm looking at Yelp.

I'm looking at Google.

I don't know what my favorite restaurant's NPS score is.

So that's why we really kind of shifted gears towards making
sure that we were communicating with our employees, how important

that Google score is.

On a monthly basis, we send out an employee newsletter letting
them know what our score is.

We have a few different towns where we have Google scores, so we
see a little fun competition between the towns for all of our

Google listings, who's getting higher?

And then also from a marketing team, our marketing team responds
to every single Google review that we get.

And it's a lot, you know, it used to be, you know, 20, 30, 40.

Now we're getting over 100 every month.

And each of those is looked at individually and responded to
individually.

They're not canned responses.

It's not a bot.

It's not AI.

It's a member of my team in Medford, Oregon, that logs in first
thing every morning and replies to those because our customers

are that why, right?

They're our most important thing.

And we want to let them know that if you're going to take the
time to leave us a review, the least we can do is take a

few moments to say thank you for it.

Andy Johns:
And that's the perfect example.

That goes back to what one of the speakers said this morning
where they said, when you're busy is when you really show the

value that your company has.

So I know that takes a lot of work.

Good for you all for doing that.

Michael Wynschenk:
So Anne, what is the app.

So there's a Google score.

And by the way our NPS score is very very good.

Andy Johns:
Sure.

Michael Wynschenk:
It's just that customers don't gravitate toward the NPS score.

They look at a Google review.

Andy Johns:
Right.

Michael Wynschenk:
What is the neighborhood app?

What is that?

Anne Tetamore:
Nextdoor.

Michael Wynschenk:
Nextdoor. So the Nextdoor app is another means of social media
and getting feedback.

In my career, there have been times where my wife would sit, go
into the app and say, "Oh, your

company is mentioned in the app." And I think my body language
pretty much showed that I wasn't really too

keen about hearing about it.

Because in other firms, candidly, there was a lot of negativism.

There was a lot of piling on.

Oh, you think that was bad?

Let me tell you what happened to me.

Andy Johns:
Right.

Michael Wynschenk:
Fortunately, with Hunter communications, she does the same thing.

And she says, you want to hear it?

And I said, "Yeah, bring it on." And we're fortunate that the
most negative comments we get is, why haven't they built

here yet? So it's not just Google.

It's neighborhood, and then also your Facebook.

You get good feedback.

Anne Tetamore:
We get great feedback on Facebook as well and reply to every
single one of those on a daily basis as well.

Andy Johns:
That's a lot. Another thing that came up in your talk then, is a
similar theme that I've seen run through.

Some of the other discussions here at the conference was
simplicity or finding ways to simplify and streamline the

experience. So what are some of the ways that you guys have done
that and whether it's internal or external?

What are some of the ways that you feel like simplifying?

And I don't know who wants to jump in, but who wants to talk
about the ways that you guys have simplified the customer

experience, the customer journey really?

Michael Wynschenk:
As we establish what our offer was going to be in the marketplace
.

There's only three price points.

There's only three levels of service, and they're all priced for
life.

There's no data caps.

There's no installation fees.

The router is included.

So we try to make it as a simplistic offer.

And if you tell customers, "Well, if you've dealt with the cable
company, how often do they raise your prices, and what do you

do?" Well, there's an anniversary if your price goes up, then
you call and complain.

Then they may lower it, and also, we try to make it simple.

This is the price you have for life.

You move across the street, and you continue to be a customer.

That's your price.

So I think we've tried to make it as simple as possible for
customers from a consumer side.

And we have the same kind of an approach for our business
customers.

The beauty of this from a residential side, we don't require any
contracts.

So what else could we do?

Andy, if you have any ideas how we can make it simpler, we'll
certainly review that.

And we debate that internally.

Our leadership team, what else do we have to do to distinguish
ourselves in the marketplace?

If it's simple, then we're going to be successful because the
customer will be successful.

Anne Tetamore:
And another thing that we've done is we're letting the customers
choose how they want to interact with us.

So in May of last year, we were able to adopt a new technology
that allows us to let our customers schedule their installation

online. So you can go online, sign up for service.

Schedule your installation.

So if it's late at night and you want to get this done before
your next busy day, or if you just don't want to talk to anyone

on the phone, you don't have to. If you know what you want, you
know what the package is.

You can go ahead and just sign up yourself.

We have very short installation windows, so you're not waiting
around all day for the technician to show up.

If you would rather call and talk to a real human, you're going
to talk to a real human.

It's about one of ten real humans that you could talk to.

So if you need to call back the next day, you can talk to that
same person again.

We really keep it very customer centric.

And the fact that how do you like to do business with your
customers, right?

Like, how do we want to make sure that we're doing business the
same way?

Andy Johns:
You know, meeting people where they are and making sure that
you're not – yeah, you're giving them different options, I think

is key.

Another thing, just as we're kind of wrapping up here as we're
moving along.

I thought it was interesting. And this goes back to your why.

But you guys do special pricing for a couple of groups of folks.

And that's I'm sure that makes things a little bit more
complicated on the back end on the billing, and it's a little bit

more work. But tell us a little bit about that program and why
you guys decided that those folks, you know, that's something you

want to do special pricing for.

Michael Wynschenk:
Well, Andy, I think you heard this morning I was talking about
how personal cyber bullying is.

And we have software to address that.

So we started the residential business during the pandemic.

And my daughter is a middle school teacher, and we have a number
of friends whose children are teachers.

And we have friends who are teachers and the horror stories that
were shared.

And it's an amazing difficulty.

And as hard as that was when the children went back to school, it
was even worse because they had about a year and a

half, depending on where those children were living of no
interaction with each other or with teachers.

So we said, well, "How do we give back?

How do we do this?" And we said, "If you're a teacher, you're
going to get a significant discount with our very, very best

offer." Then we expanded it, as I think this was out of a
Veterans Day discussion when we honored our employees

who were veterans who had served, we said, "What else can we do?

Well, you give a discount for the teachers.

Why don't you do it for military families?" So there was an
employee idea.

One was a CEO idea.

And we continue to think that way.

The military discount ended up growing into some scholarships
for those who have served before.

So we're not going to write huge checks.

We're going to discount our product, which is really good for
those who could best utilize it and have really

served both in the military and served in public schools.

Andy Johns:
Get you guys to kind of look in the crystal ball if you can,
because as you guys know, you know, once you've achieved a

certain level, that doesn't mean you just get to stop and not
worry about it in the future.

What do you see yourselves doing?

You know, what are the next steps?

What are some other things you're working on that you think is
going to propel you guys into kind of keeping that reputation and

keeping that position in the market, going forward in the next
few years?

Michael Wynschenk:
I think one thing is you, again, we refer to it this morning,
it's called Bark software.

That is an application that allows parents to be notified if
there is a quote unquote

"cyberbully activity" that occurred on the child's phone.

And that's not constant monitoring.

It's an alert system so the parent can take action.

That is part of an overall solution set that we have for
security, and that is part of

a product set we have called Hunter Shield.

That's something that just came out about a few months ago, and
we'll continue to enhance that product.

So that's one thing.

The other is we continue to do business solutions for, in
particular, small and medium sized businesses.

So we have suites of products that are coming out for them.

And the third one is there's a lot in our marketplace of
individuals who live in

either condos or in apartments.

University of Oregon is in our footprint.

A lot of students, you know, have off campus housing.

So we are working on enhancing our product for those condos and
for those

apartments. So it's both a journey of applications to make the
internet safer, as well as

a journey of solution sets for those to utilize and access the
internet more effectively the way they

want to do it, not the way we think they should do it.

Andy Johns:
Smart all the way around, smart approach there.

Last thing I have for you.

We'll start with Anne.

What advice would you have for somebody, maybe who's sitting
there thinking about they've got one of those lower ratings, or

they're trying to figure out just how they can be better on the
customer experience, and how they're thought of in the community.

What advice would you have for them, just as you're getting
started, kind of where you guys were a couple of years ago?

Anne Tetamore:
Sure. I think explaining the why behind decisions that you're
making at the company to all of your employees is really

important so that you can get everybody on board and really
keeping the decisions that you make from the

highest level down to the base, focused around your customers.

We're all consumers at the end of the day, right?

How do we like to be treated?

And that's what I really love about working at this company, is
that we have the ability to say, you know, that doesn't really

align with our brand values.

When we sit back and try to think about decisions we want to
make, and we're all sitting around scratching our heads and

what's the right thing to do, we go back to the map that we
developed when I first started with our

customer journey, and we say, "All right, what brand value does
this align with?

Are we fighting for our customers?

Are we putting them first?" And if the answer is no, then we
don't do it.

Andy Johns:
Smart. We always say "Every 'yes' you give somewhere is a 'no,'
somewhere else.

So limited time, limited resources.

Yeah, that's smart.

Michael Wynschenk:
And you're only good when you're tested.

And we're not proud of what I'm about to say, but we had an
outage in a community that I won't go into how many customers

were impacted by it.

At the same time, they had a power outage, so they got double
hit.

And at the end of the day, the power company took a while to
get it fixed.

We took a while to get it fixed.

It was a pretty remote area.

And we decided, we looked at our values.

We debated this, and the decision was made.

We are going to give a rebate for the next two months for those
customers as our way of saying, "We are

sorry." But perhaps more importantly, we had our senior
leadership team.

I think everybody took 30 or 40 customer names and phone
numbers, and we called every one of those customers, and we

apologized. And a lot of it was, we can't believe you're calling
us.

On the other hand, we can't believe we did this to you.

So how does that come up?

It comes up with a leadership team that is thinking about our
values and our why and our purpose.

And I will tell you, as positive as the feedback was from our
customers, we collectively felt very

good about doing that because the customers were so
appreciative.

Andy, sometimes it's the smallest thing, saying thank you and
I'm sorry when you mess up, it goes a long way.

Andy Johns:
I know I said that was the last question, but, you know, we may
keep going a little bit.

Do you see yourself?

You know, "disrupter" is a word that's been thrown out a lot,
you know, and it can be one of those words like "synergy" was a

few years ago where all of a sudden everybody's throwing it out.

But just as you guys are talking through your approach, the
things you do, do you guys see yourself as a as a disruptor, as

somebody who's kind of disrupting the status quo?

Anne Tetamore:
Absolutely. I think that's Michael's word for 2023.

Andy Johns:
Okay.

Anne Tetamore:
Disruption Anne. Write it on a post-it note and put it on your
computer.

How can we be more disruptive?

We are disruptive now, right?

As Michael had mentioned earlier.

No data caps, no contracts, free installation, priced for life.

When I came here, I thought, wow, this company has taken every
barrier to success, every customer complaint that I have

ever heard in my tenure working as a marketing executive for
telcos, and they've eliminated them.

That's fantastic.

And that's not to say we don't have any challenges right now.

Andy Johns:
Sure.

Anne Tetamore:
But I remember you told me, Michael, look at what everybody else
is doing, and we're going to do the exact opposite.

Andy Johns:
Okay.

Anne Tetamore:
And I said, "Okay, let's go." And it's been a wild ride.

Andy Johns:
Awesome.

Michael Wynschenk:
I think the other thing it does, it attracts people like Anne.

It attracts our vice president of our fiber projects.

It attracts our CFO.

These kind of initiatives, this kind of culture, this kind of
purpose is good for our

customers. It's good for our employees because they want to be
part of something that's bigger than them.

And it's good to recruit.

You're tired of working for the telecom or the cable company
you're working for?

Here's who we are, and this is the journey we're on.

Would you like to help us get there?

And so I think it's a strong, it's a good business decision.

It's good for customers.

And if others want to copy it in the industry, feel free to do
so.

Just don't do it where we have customers.

Andy Johns:
That's fair.

That's fair. Well thank you all so much.

I really appreciate you guys taking the time to to join me on
this episode.

I think it's good insights all the way around, and I know it's a
busy schedule, but thank you all for your time.

Anne Tetamore:
Thanks so much Andy.

Michael Wynschenk:
Thank you, Andy.

Andy Johns:
She is Anne Tetamore, the VP of marketing for Hunter
Communications.

He is Michael Wynschenk CEO at Hunter.

I'm your host, Andy Johns with Pioneer.

And until we talk again, keep telling your story.

Outro:
StoryConnect is produced by Pioneer Utility Resources, a
communications cooperative that is built to share your story.

StoryConnect is engineered by Lucas Smith of Lucky Sound Studio.