Brian Oberkirch of Small Good Thing moderated a wide-ranging exploration of customer service communities at yesterday's Customer Service is the New Marketing summit. (Flickr photo by dougfl07.) Matt Mullenweg of Automattic summed up the panel's threads well with a single metaphor: If
everyone showed up to your house for a party, would you stay away?
Probably not. You'd stay at home, make sure that everyone had a drink,
keep weirdos from doing strange things off in the corner, and herd
guests into the right room given their numbers and general mood.
How does this simple concept apply to hosting a customer community? Based on the panel discussion, I've brought together these 5 key success factors:
1. Follow the community's lead on how to participate.
Tara Hunt of Citizen Agency works with clients (including both Timbuk2 and Get Satisfaction) to navigate community creation or engagement. (Often, the best customer community is the one that a company joins, rather than one that it creates itself.) Tara notes that "it takes time to learn how to participate in a community and learn from discussions. It's a change to be part of the community, rather than an outside observer or an owner. Human beings are messy, and communities can't be planned or strategized."
The bag company Timbuk2 is a great example of this practice in action. Timbuk2 is a San Francisco brand, and it shows: high customization, strong personal identity, and a networked group of avid users. Patti Roll of Timbuk2 notes that her customers are 'highly activated' - which basically means that they really like to talk about their Timbuk2 bags - and that she's been surprised by the depth and intensity of community conversations that existed long before the company became involved.
By following her community's lead in creating company engagement, Roll has had an extremely successful experience in creating customer relationships. Timbuk2 had its own a-ha moment over one production weekend: a customer became irate when his Friday custom bag order had gone into Saturday production, and it could no longer be cancelled. Though the company wasn't online on a Saturday, other customers were - and they rose to the company's defense.
2. Talk like a normal person.
Customer service representatives often have trouble remaining a normal person when interacting with someone using their company's products and services. Speaking for users, Hunt commented that "sounding less human, or acting mediocre, doesn't make you sound more professional. It's OK for a brand to have a point of view, and it's OK to not appeal to everyone."
Fortunately, the pervasiveness of social networking is breaking down the boundaries between personal and professional personas. Social media gurus believe that this will contribute to the 're-humanizing' of customer service.
3. Engage in conversations early.
Gina Bianchini of Ning called out that the earlier you're in a conversation, the easier it is to change its tone. If someone has an urgent Ning problem and it isn't addressed early, then the community will pile on. On the other hand, if the issue is addressed right away, then the conversation remains constructive and there's a positive ripple effect for the brand. People will feel like they're talking to a person, rather than at a company.
4. Give your community a pressure valve.
Mullenweg is keenly aware of the gap between people who submit ideas, and those who actually write code and patches. To close this, WordPress created a place where people could submit ideas and vote on them. This gave the community a pressure valve. By having a single forum for the community to express their opinions, rather than spouting off on scattered blogs, the company could both consolidate its engagement efforts and the community's voice. By coming together as one community, Wordpress customers became aware of the diversity of feedback that the company was getting, and became engaged in understanding the tradeoffs that were being made.
5. Actively manage tension between company vision and community feedback
Communities won't just be about problems - they'll also be about driving new people in, how to make the brand better, how to inspire around your brand, and how to educate around your product. But what about when the community is wrong, when its feedback is inconsistent with the company's core vision, or if a few of its members are trolls?
Mullenweg feels that the hardest thing to do in a community is to ask someone to leave. But if you have a toxic community, it's necessary - better to lose one than to lose them all.
The panelists agreed that the noble thing to do is what your users tell you, but in reality, you're going to stick with your core vision. Bianchini also balances this feedback against the company culture, because it's essential to keep your own team motivated. Companies need to keep an eye on what affects user experience for the most users, not just the community users. Or as Tara put it, "Listen to experts, but design for novices."
