Ntokozo

I remember once, out with a friend for dinner, ranting about the hectic day I’ve had. About the different difficult users I’ve had to deal with, when they suddenly jumped in and asked: “Do these people actually pay to use your site?”

I must say, this was rather deflating. I mean, why was I doing what I do, when there is no direct monetary value attached to it? But it’s a very simple business equation really: Traffic = Advertisers = Profit.

“With the expectation of ‘free’ which the internet engenders, there’s an inherent danger of a cultural ethos in business in which non-paying ‘users’ don’t have the right to a personal customer service experience…”, this was Monique Viljoen-Platts’ first slide at Cape Town’s most recent GeekDinner. Monique is Yola’s[1] Community Support Manager, and a mighty good one too. Yola were the winners of the 2009 R.E.C.S.S Support Awards[2] for the categories ‘Software’, and ‘Hosting’.

And that’s why: Excellent Customer Service = A Healthy Business.

Hence enters, far left… me, the Community Support Manager.

“Online communities are social economies that trade in social capital: kudos, respect, goodwill, trust, celebrity, influence, supremacy, greatness, leverage (J B O’Reilly, The Art of Community: Building the New Age of Participation O’Reilly Media Inc, 2009, p.6,7.)

Get some feedback
Now how do I do this on our social networking sites? Well, for starters there is the ‘Contact Us’ feedback link at the foot of each page. But this is pretty much standard across most sites now. The same goes for the ‘Abuse’ button. What this means for me is that our users have an avenue from which to engage with me on a one-on-one basis. This is great when tackling user specific cases.

But how about when there is a bug on Answerit[3] I’m trying to diagnose. Perhaps on my side I’m struggling to replicate the problem, but I keep getting floods of feedbacks, reporting the same error message. What I usually do- after replying back to each feedback, of course- is to cast out an even wider net into the community, so I can get a better understanding of the bug. You see, the more details I have about the behavior of the bug, the better I am at diagnosing exactly what it is, and getting it fixed.

Ask the right questions
So what I would do is to start off by posting a question on Answerit. Asking those users suffering the same symptoms to either leave details of what was happening, or to email me screenshots. If that doesn’t help, and the bug is still persistent, then I would mention it on the Answerit blog hosted on Letterdash.

Create a forum for public discussion to take place
In this space I am able to engage with my community quite freely. A back and forth public discussion can take place. News regarding new features can be disseminated easily. And concerns can be addressed. But for those Answeritters who prefer contacting me privately, then I always recommend Spaces[4].

Get some satisfaction
This is all great, but the optimum form of customer service is when your community is not only willing to help each other through some of the technical loops, but also become your “brand evangelists” [from the slide above]. So that’s why Get Satisfaction[5], for me, is a good example of an ideal form of community management. This is where you not only have the moderators to assist you, but the community at large.

This way bugs can be spotted, reported, and fixed sooner. Suggestions can be taken in, and improvements implemented for the future. The site can basically evolve with its users’ needs and wants. And that’s why we also have a Letterdash Get Satisfaction community.

Now as you can see from this post, there are many ways in which to get, and keep, in contact with your online community. And as a summary to end off this post, I leave you with another insightful slide from Monique’s presentation on successful online communities:

[1] http://www.yola.com/
[2] http://www.supportawards.org/Winners
[3] http://answerit.24.com/Common/LandingPage.aspx
[4] http://spaces.24.com/
[5] http://getsatisfaction.com/