Customer support is a very common use case for online communities, because, if done correctly, there are tremendous benefits that can be gained. Just think, when your customers have an issue, what better way is there to build a better relationship than to resolve it for them?
The challenge comes in working to profitably scale a high-touch model where knowledgeable people can readily assist in addressing the wide array of topics your customers might have questions about. These questions could be related to your product, its use, and any related product or service that might be used in conjunction with it.
Communities are well suited to rise to the scalability challenge of customer support since they provide several key benefits:
1. Customers are accustomed to and expect to be able to find information via search
- A good portion of the vast array of knowledge that is accessible inside your organization can be made available in the community for customers to read on their own time.
- Public discussions – that previously took place privately – can be made available to read through search for customers with similar issues.
2. Customers and partners can “join your support team” to resolve issues
- Your customers have a shared experience and unique knowledge that your organization doesn't have – the experience of being one of your customers. They can share their experiences, things they have tried, work-arounds that have been successful for them, knowledge of products used in conjunction with yours but come from a third party. This perspective greatly enhances the customer experience when they share it by commenting on and answering each other’s questions.
- If your customers use any vendors to implement, service, or support the use of your products, then those vendors have a vested interest in providing your customers support through a community. While it is typically frowned upon for blatant selling to take place in a support community, vendors often find it to be a good source for leads by demonstrating their expertise. Yes, references from previous customers are good for encouraging prospects to become customers; gaining first-hand experience of your expertise will take a prospective customers confidence in you to a whole new level.
3. Your support staff’s time can be more efficiently used for questions they must address
- Personal questions are best handled through one-on-one interaction with your organization.
- Sometimes the resolution to a customer issue requires more than knowledge; it may require action on the part of your company. This could be a replacement, a setting that you have to change, a part that needs to be sent, etc. These issues must still be addressed by your organization without the assistance of the community.
- Some issues are just really hard to solve and require extensive troubleshooting or research – your staff will be the primary ones responsible for addressing these issues.
Given these benefits, it is important to staff your support organization appropriately. The staffing formula that you will use is not radically different from one that you would use to size your phone or email support staff. The effects of scale that the community brings, however, will reduce the required headcount. Here are some examples that highlight the scaling effect of community:
- How many questions are raised each day? The volume of questions is directly proportionate to the number of staff required. However, with a community, you should expect to receive fewer questions over time since members can search for existing content. If this is not your experience, try analyzing the types of questions you are receiving and determine if there is content that you could add to the community to satisfy the questions that your customers tend to ask the most.
- How long does someone have to work to provide an answer? The answer to this question should vary by the mode of support. For questions asked in the community, you should expect the answers to require relatively little work to generate since many will be common issues shared by several customers and many, if not most, will be things that other customers can answer by readily sharing their experiences. This reduces the amount of staff needed to support questions asked in the community. Conversely, you may see that the average amount of time it takes for offline questions to be answered rise since your staff may be dealing with more complex challenges only.
- What is the expectation on response time for questions? Obviously, the shorter this time, the more staff you will need. What is also true though is that if this time is too short, you will lose the benefits of having a community. When customers ask a question in a community, they do not expect the response time to be a matter of minutes. If you set that as your goal, only your staff can accomplish that. If you set the time a bit longer, perhaps up to 48 hours, you provide an opportunity for community members – both customers and third-party vendors – to jump in the conversation and potentially prevent your staff from having to respond at all.
When you first launch your support community, you may not see the full scaling benefits, and your staff will likely be very busy – resist the temptation to resolve their business by adding more permanent staff. First, focus on ensuring there is adequate content in the community and encourage customers and third-party vendors to engage. As your company grows, your staff will be able to handle the growing customer support needs in a way that is not only scalable, but is also high-touch and beneficial to your customers.
