NETTING IT OUT

As the potential benefits of customer communities become more apparent to more organizations, businesses are looking to provide this option to customers as another source of self-service. It’s not necessarily an easy task to integrate an online customer community smoothly into your existing mix of support channels--which may include telephone support, Web-based self-service, online chat, email, and more. But a customer forum should be part of your cross-channel, cross-lifecycle approach to providing service and support.

Whether you have just been handed (or volunteered for) the assignment of integrating a customer support community into your brand’s online customer service experience, or whether you’ve been involved for some time in either customer support or with the oversight of an online customer community, there’s a lot to think about.

This report discusses the relationship between online customer support channels, looking at the ideal situations...and the realistic ones. It also discusses various challenges involving the integration of support channels, and ways to address these issues within your organization.

INTRODUCTION

A Customer Dilemma

A customer has a question about a product: “How do I do XYZ?” She goes to the company’s Web site and finds two sources of potential answers. One set of answers comes from the company’s knowledgebase. The other set comes from other customers in an online forum. Which set does the customer visit or search first, and why? In my case, I usually check other customers’ answers first. I often find them to be the most useful. You may prefer the authoritative source.

Of course, there are no right or wrong answers, of course, but this situation is one that customer support and customer community professionals face regularly. Providing the easiest, most effective support to your customers is more important than determining which channel is more frequently used.

Customer Support Channels

We break down customer support channels into the following groups:

• Contact Center: telephone, chat
• Online Support (self-service): including materials such as FAQs, tech notes, product information, manuals, bug reports, and other knowledge repositories
• Customer Community Support: live and archived forums (a.k.a. message boards), blogs, wikis, group chat, and special community features (such as expert tips, suggested links to external resources, and shared files and fixes).

Baseline Questions

Based on what we are hearing from customer community sponsors and managers, we pose the following questions, which are addressed throughout this report. As a customer community support owner:

• Are you concerned that information in the customer community forums may not be entirely accurate?
• Is it easy for customers to find the support information they need, regardless of where it lives on your site?
• When customers come up with solutions and ideas, does any of that information become part of your official knowledgebase?
• Are you concerned that customers are going to view your community simply as a way for your company to save money on support?
• Is there friction (or its potential) between those involved in online customer support and online community?
• If you generate revenue from support contracts, are business execs concerned that a customer community might adversely affect this revenue stream? (“If customers can help each other, then what do they need us for?”)
• Is there concern that, by enabling customers to communicate with each other, they’ll discuss the problems with your products, recommend your competitors’ products, and refer each other to support sites elsewhere on the Web?

THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN YOUR CUSTOMER SUPPORT AND YOUR CUSTOMER SUPPORT COMMUNITY

We see three primary aspects of this relationship:

• They should be complementary.
• They should be symbiotic.
• They should be part of the same thing (from your customers’ perspective).

They Should Be Complementary

Support channels should complement each other, providing customers with multiple options, each with its own advantages and disadvantages. You should leverage (and be vocal about) the advantages.

For example, some support channels provide help in real time (phone support and online chat); others are asynchronous (message board posts). Some are available only during certain hours, while others can be accessed 24 x 7. Some cost more than others to administer and maintain. And some lend themselves better to solving complex problems.

There are other reasons why it’s important to provide complementary support offerings. These include ...