Use of Community forums as a means of tech support.

[adec]

Hi,

Does anyone here run a technical callcenter, and also have a community forum on their website ?

I've been toying with the idea of introducing a forum on our website, with one aim being to reduce the work coming through the callcenter.

The idea of customers helping customers has always appealed to me, but I need to justify it by ROI before the web team will even consider it.

I can work out the cost of a single call to the callcenter, but would need to take a guess at how many people would use the forum if it existed.

I was just wondering if anyone else has implemented the idea, and what pros and cons you had.

thanks

[mikael]

Here's some quick reactions.

The use of threaded-message forums in customer support has a long history of success. It began on Compuserve over 20 years ago with Team Borland and others. The effect, if managed properly, is the addition of anywhere from 1 to 100+ technical assistance reps to your team -- for free, or nearly so.

The last 5 issues I've had with my Mac have all been solved without a single phone call being necessary. I simply drop into the discussion forum on the apple.com site, and do a search. From the resulting pick-list, I read what seems appropriate.

The resistance you may get to the idea will probably either be financial (the perceived cost of setting up and maintaining the forum) or political -- Marketing or Sales may be fearful of having "dirty laundry" being openly displayed.

My challenge to the latter is: "What makes you think that your warts *aren't already* being posted on the 'net? The truth is that you are much better off running your own forum where you can gently exercise some control than if someone else starts a forum, perhaps for the express purpose of bashing your company and its products.

You should be able to handle the ROI stuff pretty easily. Take various estimates of how many calls might be avoided and run the numbers on each. Also run the numbers on the effect of adding X number of unpaid reps to your staff in the area of knowledge engineering. (You might factor in some costs here, for supervision and for free product, gifts, awards, etc.)

And don't let the web team try to write their own forum software -- you can license it from various places like Prospero, etc. Factor that cost into your ROI calculations.

AutoDesk used to compile a printout of all of the preceding 24 hours worth of messages on their CompuServe forum and put it on the desks of the Senior Mgmt Team every morning. They learned a lot from it, it kelt them in tune with the customerbase.

[ctaylor]

Mikael ahared a lot of valuable points and information. As another early adopter of the value of communities ( I first chatted with Mikael on Compuserve) I think I can add a couple of more points of value.

In my experience P2P (Peer to Peer) communities can reduce call volume by 15-20%. Those customers who utilize communities laso have a lower defection rate than customers who don't particpate in communities. If volunteer advocates are employed this can net a significant reduction in costs. I would add Participate Systems to the list of companies to check out, they have a first class product as well.


Hope that this is of some help. Please contact me if I can of any further assistance at ctaylor@thetaylorreachgroup.com

Colin

[adec]

Thanks, both of you, for your replies.

Regarding the 'dirty laundry' being published, you failed to mention the 3rd category - my boss the Warranty Manager !

Using your thinking though she soon came around :)

The companies that you mention for community resources are obviously the commercial packages - which is the kind that my company would go for (support, upgs, etc )

Personally I like phpBB (www.phpbb.com) - all in favour of OpenSource software. I find it much better than most forums I have seen, and it has its own thriving community pushing it forward.

Shame theres no way my company would go for it though :)

[agent]

I would love to see this implemented at our company.

We have a fairly loyal large customer base and I think our adocates would help us to support our customers which could lead to a 15-20% reduction in call volumes.

Anyone using video-based or flash based (authorware) support/training?

[ctaylor]

Agent,

I would suggest since you are local (near Chicago) you call Particpate (they are in Chicago).

I have seen 10-15 different P2P solutions and would rate theirs as most effective.

Now it is important to note here that I am completely vendor agnostic...I am in no way tied to Participate, I receive no moneys or fees...To align myself with any vendor would significantly damage my reputation and credibility...so this is just what it seems...a genuine, sincere opinion of a vendor product that I believe is superior to what else is out there.

I hope that this information is useful to you. If I can be of any further assistance, please don't hesitate to contact me directly at ctaylor@thetaylorreachgroup.com .

Colin