Axero Pulse » online community

Enabling Your Community With Social Software

Tim Eisenhauer — Tue, 06 Jul 2010 13:00:44 +0000

Wherever There Are People – There Can Be Social Software

Accounting software as the name suggests is good for accounting and related calculations. Inventory software is useful in any inventory management process and billing software is suited to the billing process. With social software however, the usefulness need not be restricted to any one process. Social software is based on people and human interaction which means it’s application is relevant in just about any scenario where you have a group of people that need to be able to work together and that is a wide scope. It’s about enabling a community by providing a virtual space they can use to collaborate, communicate and work together.

A few months ago I was having a conversation with a friend of mine who lives in a self contained residential township with about 800 home owners. They have a centralized administration made up of some of the representative owners as well as some staff to look after the utilities, maintenance and management of the mini-township and we were discussing the nightmares of coordinating meetings and communication to the 800 odd households every time something needed to be done.

If something like approving a budget to repaint the common facilities or re-surface the roads needed to be done, they had to arrange for meetings where all owners could come together and discuss before approving the move. Even common everyday issues like not cleaning up after walking the dogs called for a long process which involved drafting, printing and sending out multiple notices.

The frustration among the owners and everyone involved was clear as every task called for communication to all members and this was a mammoth task even for something seemingly simple. The sheer number of people in the community and the need to bring them together for any discussion or decision was a challenge.

This is a classic scenario where social software can be applied to mobilize a community and overcome the problems they are faced with. Oddly enough, this community did have a website but it was a static one-way website with brochure like information and not a “people” oriented website. By integrating a social software platform they can create a login section to the website where the owners can sign into and communicate, discuss and manage their community wherever they are and anytime they are free. Polls can be used to get consensus on issues and important decisions that need to be made collectively.

Messaging can be used to communicate not just to the entire community but among individual owners as well. Profiles can help each person know their neighbors a bit better and connect with each other. Events can be organized and better managed. Discussions can be started instantly on forums without having to wait for a scheduled meeting. The workings of the administration can be easily shared with the others bringing about a much more transparent working. Social software is what you make of it and in this scenario there is a lot that can be done to make the community function better.

Property developers offer all kinds of amenities to prospective home owners and I don’t believe offering a social software enabled website would add much to costs especially considering how much of a help it could be in scenarios like we discussed. Finally, isn’t this the edge social software gives? Regardless of the processes, as long as you have a group of people that need a more efficient way of collaborating, coming together and working better, social software can be the enabler. Wherever you have people, you’re likely to have a good use for social software.

Social Community Software For Customer Support

Tim Eisenhauer — Mon, 10 May 2010 13:00:27 +0000

Social Software Enabled Self Service Customer Support – The Way Forward

A recent case study I read which featured a large software infrastructure company reflected what we have been seeing across the customer support organization across industries. The company needed to act quickly given the fact that a large number of customers who would typically prefer the self service support offered under the resources section of their website were now bombarding their call centers and direct support lines.

This is a challenge a wide range of businesses face when it comes to post sales customer support or customer service and puts a burden on their traditional customer support channels including phone, email and support centers. Not only is this a burden on customer support teams who almost always have their hands full with escalated cases but it’s a often financial drain too. With some in-depth research into finding a good solution the company leveraged a social community software platform which they customized and launched into a full-fledged online self service customer support solution offering a great resource customers could turn to for answers. As observed by many, given a good online alternative to direct support a lot of customers prefer self service support.

Most of us are used to visiting the website and searching for help or using the site as a first option for customer service or support. It’s only when we don’t find it there or find it difficult to get what you’re looking for do we call a support number. Businesses need to tap into that by ensuring that first line of customer support is the point at which most of their customer find what they are looking for and that calls for a strong online solution.

Social software geared to deliver customer support help deliver that solution in a way that most customers are comfortable with. An option to log into a community on the website and find documents, resources, videos, podcasts or use discussion boards, forums, Wiki’s or chat to seek out solutions. Here is some of what businesses who have implemented a community based social software customer support platform have seen:

Quick reduction in volume of calls and a drop in the number of emails and other inquiries which were direct burdens on the customer support team. This instantly allowed them to focus their attention to escalated cases and important matters which are not easily resolved trough self service support.

The users are able to quickly adapt to the familiar social networking environment of the support community and easily find and share resources and information available within the network as well as interact with others to seek answers to specific questions etc.

A large number of questions posted on forums and discussion groups are answered by other users who have encountered similar situations or are perhaps more familiar with the products creating a community support structure. Customers are able to find solutions and in many ways a great sense of satisfaction interacting with others. Even though business representatives are present on the community, they can often play a more moderating role and step in where needed.

The knowledge base within the community builds creating a large resource for documents, best practices, FAQs and other content. This becomes a valuable resource for not just the customers but the businesses too as it has valuable feedback and information which can be used in product development and improving customer processes. The build up in the knowledge around the community also helps reduce the need for more customer support reps and their active involvement as customers are able to find what they need from the vast information already built up.

A measurable reduction in overall support costs from greater adoption of online support through the community, lower dependency on phone support, heavy re-usability of support content on the website and more.

With a strong customer support infrastructure on the website as the front line of support, businesses can use the benefits of social software to achieve greater customer satisfaction levels while keeping a check on costs. It’s definitely the way forward for the customer support and service organization.

Policy And Implementing It On Social Business Communities

Tim Eisenhauer — Tue, 13 Apr 2010 13:00:49 +0000

Online Social Business Communities & Mitigating Legal Risks They Can Bring Up

A online discussion started by a community manager for his company’s internal social network brought out an issue which is critical to the smooth operation of online communities both internal and external. One of the users on their internal business website network copied and pasted an article off another site possibly without realizing it’s a copyright violation. When you build a community for the business and have a number of different users actively adding to content, linking and posting, there are almost always a risk for copyright infringement in some form or the other. Even if not deliberate, not everyone will be as aware about copyright and licensing issues as the next person and without moderation of every single post and activity before publishing (which is not viable for most) it’s always possible some copyright violation happens on the site which can snowball into messy situation with the owners of the content.

It’s clear that it may not be possible to be 100% sure this doesn’t happen so the objective is always to mitigate the risk and ensure that everyone is aware of it. This is done through educating users and putting in a policy. While most people may not directly be involved with plagiarism, something as simple as adding a picture for a blog post they published and later discovering that picture was copyrighted is enough to start a legal course of action.

It’s important to create a comprehensive policy which explains things like use of images. video, the need to use quotes and references while using extracts of other peoples work and it’s just as important to be able to explain this is simple terms. If every user that signs up is made aware of the policy for using the community or network the risk of them doing any of this (at least knowingly) is reduced. However, it’s good to be able to consider and account for what can be done should this still happen. What do you do if there is still content posted which is a violation of policy or copyrights?

This is where administrative capabilities come in handy. If your community platform has good administrative capabilities it gives you the option to step in and moderate content and user activities where it’s really required. If the software being used doesn’t give you moderation abilities, it can put you in a tough spot knowing something needs to be done but doesn’t let you take any action before someone else does.

A number of platforms put together by assembling various open source software components don’t offer this level of administration which is then really not suitable in a business situation where you, as a business, are held more accountable for everything published online. It’s like having the most comprehensive policy in place and not having the ability to implement it. The ability to moderate the community and content is the last line of defense against issues caused by such copyright violations.

Here are a few things that can be done to reduce the risk of copyright and content duplication:

Develop a user policy which is easy to understand and ensure all users have read the policy on sign up
Re-enforce the policy through offline training for internal networks where location is not an issue and by discussing it on the community where it’s not possible to educate users offline
Have a community manager or moderator who is assigned the responsibility of scanning the activity and content on the site daily and raising a red flag for any violation of the policy
Contact users who have violated policy through internal messaging or email so they understand what the risks of their actions are.
Moderate and take down any copyrighted content as soon as possible as a last resort

With a good user policy, constant awareness and the ability to implement the policy and keep the site clean and free from legal issues unwanted trouble can be kept at bay.

Customization Of Look And Feel For Your Online Community Software

Tim Eisenhauer — Tue, 16 Mar 2010 13:00:08 +0000

The Good The Bad The Ugly Of Social Networks & Community Sections On Business Websites

Have you ever come across a company website where the design, look, and feel oozed professionalism and gave you the feeling that you were viewing a “credible website” — until you logged into the community section, forums, or the social network section of the site and you find yourself in unfamiliar surroundings again? This is usually a result of weaving in a free open source platform to extend the website to include a community section or features such as forums.

A majority of the free software hosted options for communities are not built with complete customization abilities in mind. They offer functional solutions that allow you to customize some options, and at the most, offer a choice of skins to adjust look and feel — but, to be able to add on a community area or social network as a seamless part of the website, one needs to be able to get down to the code and components that govern the basic look and feel.

While selecting community software for your website, be sure to select a platform that allows you to customize down to the fine details, and that will allow you to integrate it with the rest of your website. Solutions like Communifire, that provide access to the CSS style sheets (which are well labeled and documented) make it easier for you to customize fonts, colors, borders layout, and adjust each aspect of the look and feel to appear as a extension of your existing site.

This way, when someone comes across your site and navigates through the community (where people do spend a lot more time) they have the same design experience and familiarity carried through the entire site.

This is the kind of experience you have while using communities on sites like CISCO’s and others where the social networking and community part of the site is really a big part of the overall site. It doesn’t look like someone had a great aesthetic sense while building their main website and then decided to shabbily glue on a community platform as an extension.

Here is a check list of design elements you should check for to see if you will be able to edit or modify them to gel with your look and feel while selecting a social software platform:

Layout, spacing, and borders
Images and icon sets – including avatars
Colors – including background, foreground, font, borders, hyperlinks, etc.
Fonts and text style / formatting
Ability to add on components and widgets, like forms and anything else that may be needed

The entire point of evaluating a good social networking or community platform is to avoid having to build everything from scratch — but you still want your community to give the end user a seamless experience. If you select a platform which gives you that, you’ll have a community that’s functional and looks right!

2010 The Year Of The Social Community Platform?

Tim Eisenhauer — Tue, 09 Feb 2010 13:00:24 +0000

As we get back to work after the holidays the new year kicks off with a lot of promise and a lot of excitement. Just as we cross over into 2010 with the final version 1.0 of our Communifire software platform, there is more to be excited about reading Jeremiah Owyang’s latest post on the web-strategist site. According to a survey which asked “What emerging technologies do you want to see covered in the near future (a choice of 3 from a possible 6 technologies) 29.7% voted Community Platforms as “Most Important”, 37.5% voted it as second most important and 32.8% voted it as third most important putting it up there with SCRM and Mobile Social Networks as the 3 hottest technologies for the coming year.

The last year saw social strategies adopted by businesses pick up in a huge way and there was a lot of learning which took place and shared by the early adopters. This year one could expect more of those who have been silently observing from the sidelines to take the plunge into developing their own social strategies, build stronger relationships with stakeholders online and develop their online social communities putting all the learnings into play.

As the year unfolds we’ll continue to follow social technologies and share insights into building better social communities with our readers. Stay tuned because if the buzz around this space currently is any indication of where things are expected to go this year, then 2010 looks like interesting year for the community platform.

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How An Online Community Can Add Credibility To Your Business Website

Tim Eisenhauer — Tue, 15 Dec 2009 06:56:03 +0000

There Is Nothing Quite Like Others Endorsing Your Business & Nothing Quite Like Your Own Online Community To Encourage It

Having credibility online is key to any business website — and especially in today’s context, there is nothing comparable to third party and customer endorsements, the kind of credibility you can build on the web when they say good things about your business. It makes a world of difference hearing about something from a sales person or representative of a business and hearing others who are outsiders talk about the business. The latter is something we rely on so heavily on. It’s imperative that businesses do as much as they can to ensure others are talking about them, spreading the word, and building credibility for the business. Social networking based community platforms can play a very central role in this process.

Think about this… What do visitors come across on your business website that builds some kind of trust and confidence in your business and makes them feel you are the business to go to for their requirement? Perhaps the “About Us” page? The management team? Your list of existing customers and clients? Your contact information, like an address? All of these components play some role in building confidence in a website user, along with other things like the look and feel, design, and how professional the site appears. As for third party endorsements, these are usually found in the form of customer testimonials, which are great simply because they come from others who have good things to say about their experiences with your business. However, in the social web, there is a lot more that people look for to re-assure them about your business. What are others saying? Are people blogging about you? Are other people discussing your products and offerings on forums? What’s the chatter about you on Twitter? Do you have any communities or groups where we can hear what people are saying about your business? All these things play some role and to bring all this to the website — a social networking software or community platform can add this dimension to a business website.

Building a public facing community on your business website can provide people with a place to communicate with your business and also with each other. Simply providing this completely open, transparent environment where users can have a say alone can instill a ton of credibility. It says that you as a business are open to transparent dialog and encourage users to communicate freely about your products and services. It provides a platform for a user seeking assurance to sign up and talk to others inside and outside your business, who may have had some experience with it and get unbiased opinions from other customers … which is often more convincing than hard selling.

Social networks and communities become the places we as consumers turn to for assurances and opinions — the community section on a business website may just be the place to find the credibility we seek.

Online Communities – Migration And Control Over The Community Database

Tim Eisenhauer — Wed, 09 Dec 2009 01:06:37 +0000

Database Considerations For An Online Community Development Plan

A challenge that we have seen both technology decision makers and business decision makers struggle with is the question on whether to opt for a self-hosted social networking platform or one that runs off a third party server / website and is offered as a service. Both of these options have pros and cons to weigh out and decisions are made, taking into account what’s important to meet their needs. I believe one of the most important questions to be asked while looking at communities is “who controls the data?”

Building a really great community, especially an external public facing community, is not an easy task. It requires time and effort to build it, grow it, and nurture it. Once you have this community online that you have invested in and put in so much to develop, the really tangible element of what you take from this is the community database. The community data is not just a business asset, but is also the result of all the efforts that go into the process. When you have a self-hosted community, it’s clear you have complete un-restricted access to all the data — since the database server is also within your reach. You can export, format, and re use that data as required, whether to send out email communications, direct mail invitations to an event, or communicate with the community members when required. If in the future you plan to migrate the community to a new platform or need the user data to extend membership to another online offering, it can be done.

What about when the community is built on a hosted solution or third party social networking site? There is no question that the community is still yours. Communities built on sites like LinkedIn and Ning also allow group administrators and community owners to communicate with their members and perhaps even send group messages across the entire community. But what needs to be asked is, “just how much control and ownership do you have over your community data?” If you don’t foresee the need to be able to migrate the user database or export and use any of the data for anything other than being able to send community-wide internal messages or emails, then a SaaS community platform or one built on a social networking website (like on LinkedIn) may be a good option. If you need un-restricted access and complete ownership over all the data, then perhaps the self-hosted option is the way to go.

All said and done, the database and the data contained within it is a very important consideration while moving ahead with an online community development plan and something to be considered carefully before deciding which the best way forward is.

Building Customer Retention And Customer Loyalty Through Online Communities

Tim Eisenhauer — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 11:33:53 +0000

Online Communities Can Work Where Newsletters And Emails Don’t Deliver The Customer Loyalty & Retention Your Business Needs

It seems that more businesses are turning to the online communities as an answer to challenges with building and retaining their customer bases every day. Just the other day, I met with a business development team from a market research company looking towards developing an online community, after they started observing that their current customer loyalty programs (including a fortnightly newsletter) was just not as effective as it was a few years ago when they first started. While the newsletter resulted in some click throughs and reads from their 5000 strong email database, it lacked the participation and two way conversation they were seeking to have with their customers and prospects — which they felt was necessary to build a stronger relationship with them and create more loyalty towards the services and reports they deliver.

The organization had almost 6 different business arms, each catering to the research and business intelligence needs of a different industry vertical. And each arm wanted to create a single customer facing online community (rather than fragment it across the different verticals) and then allows the user to select their category of interest according to their industry or area of interest. This way, they could divert all their attention towards building one really valuable community and resource for their customer base — and then make it easy for each customer to find the information that’s most relevant to them within the community, rather than manage several smaller ones.

This model has the following benefits:

Having only a single location online to manage allows the team to focus on developing a single resource with quality, rather than scattering efforts over multiple smaller communities.
A single community makes it easier to promote, while still being able to provide customers a section within the community that’s their “go to” place to interact with the business as well as find information valuable to them.
The content within the community gets updated more frequently, giving it an SEO edge which benefits the business.

Using this model and leveraging a social networking online community software platform, the company hopes to gradually replace their newsletters and email marketing efforts with this more pull based model, which will allow the customers to play a more upfront and personal role in the company’s customer retention efforts and grow their online community rather than their email lists.

Venturebeat.com recently published a post around online communities helping build customer loyalty and the article said:

Online communities are one of the most efficient ways to listen to your customers. When your company hosts an online community for your small business customers, and you truly have the goal of listening and being a valuable resource for them, something special starts to happen. Your good intentions and efforts will begin to translate into actual business results for your customers, and ultimately for you as well. As you open your ears to their thoughts, concerns, and complaints, you gain their respect and confidence, causing you to no longer be simply a vendor who provides a service, but rather an indispensible partner.

With the right social software platform and a focused plan to bring the customers into the conversation, the online community could be your center of customer loyalty and retention.