Encouraging users to participate in Get Satisfaction

Hi Amy

Thanks for getting back to me. That sounds like a great feature. And I have some really great SynthaSite users in mind I would love to make deputies! I will certainly look out for what promises to be a welcome addition to a great forum!

Monique

Hi Monique! As Amy said, it does sound like you've done everything right so far. Are you asking because the level of participation of your customers hasn't met your expectations?

(BTW, I visited synthasite and it looks great!)

Hi Rene

I posted that question a few weeks ago when I was still trying to increase activity in our forum. I was fishing for ideas on what else I could do to improve participation. I am happy to say that what we have done seems to be working, and I can sense the beginnings of a SynthaSite community. If you take a look at my reply to the thread you started on company participation, you will see a post that more accurately reflects what is going on over at SynthaSite right now.

Amazing isn't it, given that it hasn't been long at all since we got started!
Thanks for visiting SynthaSite and for the positive feedback!

This is all very new and exciting to me!

I should mention that although we had participation in Get Satisfaction when I posted that question, most of my support was still being handled through our helpdesk software. I am constantly trying to push this load to a communal support system as opposed to a ticket based one, for obvious reasons. This is still the case. I always anticipate running a traditional help desk side by side with Get Satisfaction. But I hope that in time most of the activity will be in the community, so that knowledge can be shared and so that support can scale as our userbase grows. Whenever I send an individual email I share a link to a forum post as part of the answer. Hopefully people will get the idea eventually!

About having alternate means of customer support other than getsatisfaction, that **was** one of the ideas I was going to probe in further discussion.

Is it absolutely necessary that you maintain multiple channels like that? Unless I totally missed it, SynthaSite sounds like it's fairly new and the customer base not too large yet. If the idea of making a "hard" cut-over (to using Getsatisfaction as your ONLY channel) has ever crossed your mind, now is the time to do it.

PBwiki (http://getsatisfaction.com/pbwiki/pro...) with thousands of customers made just such a cut-over, cold turkey! Of course there were some customers who were really pissed! But by and large PBwiki pulled off that migration quite nicely.

Hi Rene

That is an interesting question, and I am certainly prepared to keep an open mind. These are my reservations, however:

1) Many of our new users seem to lack the confidence to ask their questions in an open forum for fear of appearing "stupid". However, once I am able to build their confidence through private communication, they seem more willing to begin posting to the forum. I would be unwilling to deprive users who need one-on-one attention from an easy way to meet this need.
2) A ticketing system offers a more obvious way of making sure that nothing slips through the cracks, especially when queries need to be escalated to developers and engineers. When a user needs attention from one of these team members in Get Satisfaction I find myself having to send them emails and IM's to make sure it happens. Perhaps this will improve in time.
3) I am watching eagerly for future developments in Get Satisfaction, but right now some features I need appear to be missing. One of the biggest is the ability to share screenshots and other graphics with users. Either this feature is not available yet, or I just haven't figured it out yet. . .

My hope is that Get Satisfaction is going to become our primary support channel, but it feels safer to me to have both options available. I may be mistaken, however, and I am open to being convinced otherwise. I can already think of some counter arguments to what I have shared above:
1) Users will gain confidence when a forum is the only option available to them. By allowing them to email support, we are fostering a dependency which may become unsustainable.
2) Other team members will learn to monitor Get Satisfaction, and by having two systems running side by side the effectiveness of the team is diluted.
3) If I need a feature that isn't available in GS, I should look for a workaround and post a request.

As you can see, I am willing to look at this from both sides, so feel free to have a vigorous debate with me on this issue.

Thanks Monique. Yes, I agree the one-on-one handling is best for the cases you mention.

Then you mentioned a ticketing system and how it helps in escalation. I think therein lies the heart of your dilemma. "Escalation" implies a heirarchical or layered method in responding to requests. Such a method is diametrically opposed to how Getsatisfaction works to provide support. Getsatisfaction is a collaborative or direct support system - you ask for help and the person who can give it, gives it! No layers, no escalation.

"Support" is both requested AND given, or it ain't support. From the perspective of a company using Getsatisfaction, if you've got the requesters (and more of them all the time :-) ) the challenge is making sure there are enough help-givers on the scene as well.

I don't mean to question how your company is organized, but Getsatisfaction will work best for you if your engineers and developers (or at least the person who makes sure they are chasing down problems) would also be actively monitoring your product pages and offering solutions for every issue that pops up.

If you are your company's evangelist for using Getsatisfaction, I'm afraid you now have two audiences, external and internal, that you need to convince. I note there are 8 of you from SynthaSite registered in your group and that speaks a lot for your level of commitment. But because Getsatisfaction is a direct support system, it becomes more important to decide roles between yourselves. There HAS to be someone who will raise their hand for technical matters, saying "this one's mine!". And forigve me if I'm wrong but I deduce your background is not Technical.

So sorry to ramble! About new features on Getsatisfaction - well they may just have something brewing that is reminiscent of a ticketing system. You're right when you say you should "just ask" (don't you just love direct support?!). As for helping customers to show of their work, it seems to me that is more "community building" and not strictly support. But hey, that's just me. Again, go ahead and ask!

All very interesting.

You are right about my background, of course.

I agree with everything you have shared here, and I will certainly advocate for these principles as much as I can.

I think we have uncovered some useful insights here. Thanks for talking. . .

Hi Amy

Thanks for the great tips on improving the visibility of Get Satisfaction on the help page. Also thanks for the workaround for adding screenshots. I am sure I can manage the HTML for this. (Nice to be on the receiving end of some support for a change!)

I understand Rene's point about a direct support system where everyone in the company has a role to play, and I really like the idea. Already I am very pleased with the level of adoption of Get Satisfaction, both from within the company and from our users. For example, a user posted a fantastic comment yesterday about a requested feature that has recently been added, and it was great to realize that this user felt "heard" and valued by our efforts.

Monique, I'm sorry if I sounded preachy in any way. I really hope some of what I had to say was helpful to you!

Hi Rene

Yes, your comments are very helpful. It is always useful to think through something with someone else. I am very much at the point where I am trying to imagine the way forward so I am very open to input and ideas.

Thanks for being talkative!