The high cost of phone support is motivation alone, but using the Web is not without its challenges.
As Michael wrote, "Search tools often don't work very well. The libraries of frequently asked questions aren't always kept current. And, as tech and other companies increasingly rely on discussion forums to handle customer queries, it isn't always easy to tell whether the people answering your question actually know what they're talking about."
Failure to adequately address these concerns can spill over to the web, where bloggers and disgruntled customers have very public ways to communicate their displeasure. Their readily accessible postings provide excellent source material for the media and worse prospective customers.
Enter corporate communications. Working with product development and customer support, we can add our knowledge of social networks and new media communications tools. We can serve as advisors to create forums that will answer questions before high-cost phone calls are ever made to customer support.
Meet Intuit's Scott K. Wilder
Case studies are a valuable way to build best practices. Scott K. Wilder with Intuit's Small Business Divisions has been cited for his work building a successful online forum for Intuit's customers. Intuit's QuickBooks online community, for example, is very easy to use with a nice blend of employee and customer input. Intuit's online site blends numerous forums and blogs with an extensive database of tips, widgets and reports. Users can locate experts by geographic location and access videos and tutorials.
Dan Greenfield: How did you build a community using forums and social networks?
Scott K. Wilder: All good things take time. So our success did not happen overnight. Fortunately, it is in Intuit's DNA to get as close to the customer as possible. When Scott Cook founded the company, he wanted every employee to do Follow Me Homes -- which entailed following our customers from the retail store (where they bought the product) and seeing how they used it in their environment (their home or in their office). So 'Social Networking' for us is just an extension of our Follow Me Homes. Only now, we have created an environment where users can interact with others easier (vs. employees connecting with users). We were also fortunate because managing a small business is an emotional thing -- so emotional that users (small business owners seek advice of others like them -- of other Small Business owners).
Some key take aways:
- The company's culture is important.
- Understanding users' pain points and the emotion around their business or service.
- Understanding the challenges users have in their everyday life -- or in managing their business
- Managing a Small Business, for example, is complicated. You need to deal with legal issues, accounting issues, marketing issues, etc.
When we launched the community we started simple and let it grow organically over time, letting our users tell us how they wanted the community to grow. They told us explicitly (we have a number of user groups who tell us where to put our development dollars) and implicitly (we see certain trends and try to build forums, blogs, etc. to facilitate discussion about those trends)
Greenfield: How do you incentivize customers to want to help others?
Wilder: We don't incentivize them. We recognize if they are part of a special group. But we do not give them any money. We do recognize individuals who answer more posts than others, and we do have certain groups that users can become part of. For example, we have our accountant ProAdvisors and our developers. Users of both groups have a unique icon that lets users know their expertise.
Greenfield: What are the pitfalls/challenges of using social networks in this manner?
Wilder: Once word gets out that you are incentivizing users, a company could be accused of playing favorites. It also violates the Word of Mouth Association ethics that states you should not pay someone to talk about / blog about your product unless they admit to receiving compensation upfront. Imagine having a community where everyone is eligible for a bonus -- and have to share with others that they are receiving this bonus. Our goal is to focus on facilitating interaction by building a great infrastructure for users to interact.
Greenfield: Do you have any metrics you can share that define success?
Wilder: Here's a snap shot of some of the ways we define success:
- Growth -- increase in uniques, etc.
- Engagement -- frequency and recency of participation
- Learnings -- what are we learning from our users -- we have an area of the site called We Hear You -- where we let users know which product suggestions we have used or haven't used.
- Costs - Cost Per Contact vsThe Call Center
Greenfield: Any sense of the percentage of your customers that are registered to use your online forums?
Wilder: Between 5-10 percent of our customers use our QuickBooks, Quicken and Accountant communities
Greenfield: Have you seen a decrease in calls to customer support?
Wilder: Community has had a positive impact vis a vis inbound calls. It is less expensive and users like to interact with other business owners -- someone who is like them and who has been in the trenches.
Greenfield: What advice would you give other companies that are considering customer forums/networks?
Wilder: Here are some concepts to think about:
- There is no secret sauce -- you learn over time through trial and error.and every community is different
- Understand the 'Broken Window' Theory --You need moderation -- if you let one bad Apple abuse another user -- then others will start abusing other users too
- The 3 Rs are important:: rewards (not financial), recognition and ratings
- Leverage learnings -- especially when it comes to product development
- Understand your influencers-- and how they can contribute to the you community (what will get them to engage, for example)
Greenfield: Thanks Scott: Anything else you would like to add?
Wilder: Social Networks provide a great opportunity for businesses' to facilitate interaction among their users. And to help get relevant and useful information. And of course, Social Networks connect people of like minds. .. in our case, they help connect Small Business owners together.
It is too challenging for any company to try and answer every type of user question. For example, two people could be using the same product in different industries -- so they will probably have different questions. How a consultant uses QuickBooks is different from a company that manufactures products. The challenge for us, then, is to build a customer support team that has experts in every industry (possible) that is using our products -- in industries, such as consulting and manufacturing.
That would require a lot of training... and truth be told... someone who works for a manufacturing company or has manufacturing experience will always know more than someone who just gets a month of training on that industry. Someone whose livelihood depends on them working in the manufacturing industry will always know more than others (outside the manufacturing industry).
Therefore, Social Networks provide users with a great opportunity to become an expert and to share their knowledge and experience with other users. Social networks provide a great opportunity for users to learn first hand from experts and other users like them.
Social Networks are certainly popular. I think people should look at some of the smaller more niche social networks to see how they benefit users (Don't just look at MySpace and FaceBook). The power of small groups -- the Wisdom of Smaller Crowds increases all the time. We have small groups on our site -- some private and public -- that benefit greatly from collaborating and learning together.
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Intuit has used social media to develop a very robust online community. They are a model for other companies interested in using social media to foster customer engagement and brand extension. I am currently looking at other companies that are successfully using social media to enhance customer support and who are enlisting corporate communications to assist in these efforts. If you have examples of either, I would be interesting in hearing from you.
Let me get back to you.
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