CopyDiva

Embarq is in the thick of a launch of their YouTube channel. I know this because my friend Alisa, who works for iCrossing, told me about it.

The idea behind it is to post some how-to support videos for Embarq customers, and make them readily accessible on the web. I am not completely sure that I get the promo for it. The idea is that if you use Embarq for Internet access, your page downloads happen 48 seconds faster than dial-up (I know, dial-up? really? but, Embarq serves a more rural population that has less access to high-speed Internet). The promo is a contest. Make a video of what you would do with that 48 seconds, then submit it. They will award prizes soon to the winner. The disconnect for me is: what does the gained 48 seconds have to do with the customer support videos?

All the support videos are longer than 48 seconds. Hey, maybe that would have been a better gimmick – 48 second customer support videos to take you through various steps in signing up and troubleshooting. Anyway, from what I can see, if you submit a video, you probably have a good chance of winning, for two reasons:

1. not too many people have submitted videos
2. the bulk of the ones up there are not very good

What I want to know is, has it drawn attention to Embarq’s customer support videos? Are people viewing them more? Has it reduced the number of calls into tech or customer support? Has it improved customer opinion of Embarq? I know full well that the market for broadband services is filled with negative commentaries from unhappy customers — there are whole sites dedicated to this kind of customer-to-customer experience. I have no personl experience with Embarq, but know the problems faced by the players in this market.

The YouTube channel itself is very much promotion focused, and the videos with the most views are the “48 seconds” videos. I’ll be curious to see how this plays after the contest is over. How will Embarq direct traffic there? How will they continue to make use of this channel to support a customer service strategy?