"Social" and "viral" aren't words just for YouTube videos and Facebook posts anymore. Increasingly, companies are extending the social concept into the customer service organization by expanding their online support communities to allow customers to help each other with service issues.
"[Online support communities] isn't a new concept, though the Web 2.0 buzz in 2008 definitely moved this from an emerging best practice to a common practice," says John Ragsdale, vice president of technology research for the Technology Services Industry Association (TSIA). "If managed effectively, online communities play a vital role in building a sense of community among customers, fostering collaboration, and as a result, boosting customer satisfaction and brand loyalty. Not to mention possibly deflecting some assisted support interactions to the community for peer resolution."
According to the 2009 TSIA annual member technology survey, 57 percent of the 300 members interviewed say they offer a discussion forum, up from 49 percent in 2008 and 36 percent in 2007. Ragsdale adds that strong spending on online communities is planned in 2010, and he expects to see adoption rise to 70 percent or higher over the next year because of the social boom.
"It's a have-to-have these days," says Treb Ryan, CEO of cloud computing firm OpSource, which has seen bottom-line impact from its HelpStream-powered collaborative customer support community. "I know that when I need to get anything done with my iPhone or with any of my personal technology, I will always go to the community first. It's faster and the solutions are more effective most of the time."
Most online support communities today are made up of a series of discussion forums categorized around product lines or service areas. Some might have an FAQ or other searchable knowledgebase, as well. That is not new. What is new is that as customer adoption of social tools increases, so does their expectations for collaboration. As a result, some forward-thinking firms have added collaborative tools to their communities.
TSIA's Ragsdale says that 32 percent of TSIA members have a wiki in place to allow customers to add and edit knowledgebase content. He specifically points to Cisco, which provides a Cisco Support Wiki for users to collaborate by producing and editing content such as articles and tutorial videos. The interface is designed to provide users with an easy way to contribute content, he says, and all versions of each article are stored in the history, allowing users to look at the different versions and contributors in the history table.
"Most people think of the one-to-one relationship as between companies and customers, but it is moving to be customer-to-customer, with the company just being the host," says John Kembel, general manager of social solutions at RightNow Technologies. "Fundamentally people want to ask each other questions, and most of the time they get their answer faster."
OpSource sees bottom-line impact
In the OpSource community, for example, most customers still primarily search existing content, but Ryan says there are some power users who use their experience to help other customers. In one case a user posted tips on how to install additional server components and new applications for OpSource's products; in another instance someone posted directions on how to write custom code to build a product on top of OpSource's APIs.
From July to December 2009, OpSource's community generated 381 customer service questions. Of those, 64 percent were resolved with the existing content in the knowledgebase, and 15 percent were resolved by other community members. Only 21 percent of questions required an agent to resolve the issue.
A holistic community
Online support communities can be successful, but experts warn that they must not exist in a vacuum. Currently many are islands unto themselves, but the real success will happen if they are integrated into the larger customer service organization.