News

Blog Post: The New Era of Support: Resources to Get You Started

Wendy Gibson — Wed, 23 May 2012 21:48:00 GMT

Business as we know it is changing, and that is because your customers’ preferences for how they receive support and interact with your brand is evolving. So how are companies adjusting to the evolving needs of their customers? A great solution is a customer-driven support community, which falls into the social support bucket. If you are unfamiliar with social support, it is a way that customers receive self-guided support that allows them to resolve issues in an online community.

Is customer-driven support something that piques your interest? If so, we have some great resources to help you learn how you can drive real value in your organization!

Just starting out? For those of you who are new to social or simply want to educate your peers, you may find our new Social 101 eBook to be very helpful. As you flip through this eBook, it will teach you how social networks, applications and online communities fit together to create a social support strategy.

Are you more of a visual person? No worries. We have demo videos available so that you can see how communities work in action.

Looking for additional resources? If so, then I encourage you to check out our Social Customer Service toolkit. This toolkit has everything from videos to best practice guides to help ensure that you reach your social business goals. Our toolkits were designed around common resources our customers have asked for as they plan their communities.

When it comes to a great customer experience, hosting a well-designed and easy to use community is a key best practice. That is why we have created these community design blueprints to jump start your efforts. I encourage you to download these sample designs to spark some ideas on what your community may look like.

Itching to learn more from influencers? In our Social Customer Service toolkit, we include a list of analysts and industry thought leaders that will provide you with great perspective on the social industry – we like to call them the Voices to Follow.

Want to hear what our customers have to say? We have numerous customers who have created social support communities; you can read about the value that these communities bring to their organizations in their customer success stories.

Download the eBook, take a short break to watch a demo or browse the Social Customer Service toolkit today. These resources will help guide you towards enhancing customer support at your organization with an online community.

Blog Post: Customer Spotlight: HealthStream Cuts Support Costs with Community

Wendy Gibson — Thu, 17 May 2012 13:00:00 GMT

HealthStream helps healthcare organizations take care of their greatest asset: their people.

It was looking for a way to create more personal relationships with customers who are primarily nurses and healthcare professionals. It wanted to give them convenient, accessible support for its training & learning management, talent management, performance assessment and managing simulation-based education products.

HealthStream decided to get social with its support model. Here are three quick tips from this case study you can pick up from HealthStream to drop your support costs and improve your customer relationships:

Help customers help each other: HealthStream jumped off the support treadmill. Rather than answering the same questions over and over on the phone, customers can ask and answer questions. All these solutions are captured as tribal knowledge for future. Of course, customers can still call the support center, but now they have an additional, convenient avenue for support, which is saving HealthStream time and cutting down on support costs.
Incorporate videos into training: Customers like to access rich media and content to learn how to use your products at the same time that they watch a how to demo.
Encourage customers to network: Customers get training and product support quickly in the community, and it also connects fellow customers (nurses and healthcare professionals) to one another. They can post and search for jobs, get tips from fellow peers and ultimately learn how to do their jobs better, which is a significant value add for customers using your products.

Download the case study to pick up some more customer support tips from HealthStream.

Blog Post: Support gets Social – How your Organization can Benefit

Jon Allen — Fri, 11 May 2012 14:00:00 GMT

Of the many use cases in social business, social support has to be one of the most impactful. Just think about it, social support benefits everyone ranging from consumers to corporations, enthusiasts to brand managers, and support specialists to a company’s CFO.

I bet you’ve experienced social support in some form or fashion. For instance, imagine that you have a question about a message that keeps popping up on your new laptop. So naturally you go to the Internet, type parts of the same message in the search bar, and voilà – you find the same message in the list of search engine results. Excited to find a match, you click through and end up on the laptop manufacturer’s website in a support community. Most likely you will find the online conversation you review to be very helpful. In this community you discover not only that it’s not just you experiencing that annoying pop-up message, but you also receive an explanation of the cause, along with a link to the software update that will solve the issue. Ah, life is good again. So you move your cursor over the picture of this helpful stranger that gave you this information so that you can thank him, however you notice that the individual is just another community member and doesn’t even work for the laptop manufacturer – that’s the beauty of a support community.

Reasons like that validate how solutions centered around social support, like Telligent Social Support for Microsoft SharePoint, can be very beneficial to organizations.

With Telligent Social Support for SharePoint, the customer experience is improved while the company benefits from higher customer satisfaction, reduced support costs, and the ability to monitor and track valuable information about how its products and services are performing. Take a look at this short video about a consumer interested in purchasing new equipment and how Telligent Social Support for SharePoint enhances the online experience. After you watch the video, take a second to have a trading places moment and swap your company with the company in the video and think of how valuable a social support community could be for your company.

Interested in learning more about the power of social support communities and how you can enhance customer support with online communities? If so, then we encourage you to join us for our upcoming Social Customer Service Webinar on May 22^nd where you’ll hear firsthand from industry experts and customer care gurus.

Blog Post: Welcome New Customer: ConnectWise

John Rabara — Wed, 09 May 2012 17:15:00 GMT

We are excited to announce one of our new customers, ConnectWise. ConnectWise is a technology company based in Tampa, Florida dedicated to delivering powerful IT services and management solutions to small and mid-sized companies. ConnectWise will leverage Telligent’s online community software as a platform to support an online community of ConnectWise experts and current partners. This community will be the resource center for ConnectWise partners, housing company training courses, product discussions, informative videos and the exchange of best practices through forums. ConnectWise will also utilize the community to capture knowledge on product enhancements and R&D.

Please join me in extending a warm welcome to ConnectWise!

Blog Post: Social Business - 3 Keys to Success

Rob Howard — Mon, 07 May 2012 17:31:00 GMT

Over the past eight years, I've traveled to various countries consulting with customers from a range of industries who are working on creating or enhancing their social business strategy – specifically with respect to how they are using social community software to transform communication and collaboration among their organization’s customers, partners and employees.

As companies continue to evolve their social business strategy, numerous questions always tend to come up along the way. One particular question that I was recently asked was, “What are the three core elements of social business?” Here’s my response:

1. Emphasis on Business Outcomes, Not Technology Features

What distinguishes an organization in their use of social technology? Strategy

That is why it is important to note that organizations that are linked to being key models of how to use social software to change a dynamic in their business define a clear strategy early on, measure on a consistent basis and evolve and make corrections along the journey. However, too often social business conversations focus primarily on the features and capabilities rather than the strategy that will produce desired business outcomes. For example, at Telligent we recently responded to a RFP which had over 500 requirements – this included everything from nuances such as how tags worked to more specific capabilities such as video transcoding.

What constantly amazes me about these conversations relate back to my primary point – the most successful uses of social business have nothing to do with technology, but instead business transformation. Organizations that put an emphasis on how social evolves their business tend to have the most success. For example, one organization that we've been working with uses social as an enabler for their sales organization. Just as the organization uses CRM tools to track and manage customer data, they also use social to track and manage all the specifics of what customers are doing, how they go through the buying process, and the outcomes.

Key takeaway: Technology is the easiest part of the social software equation. Spending the time to understand what an organization’s goals and objectives are and mapping those to a business strategy takes forethought. However, organizations that apply strategy to their social endeavor also are the ones that tend to get the results others desire to achieve.

2. Social is an Integrated Set of Experiences, Not Another Destination Site

I believe that social is the connective tissue that enables organizations to bridge many different business technologies: document management, HR, sales and more. Essentially, social business connects the organization together.

We often see organizations approaching social as another vertical technology solution inside their enterprise architecture, sitting alongside HR systems and document management systems. As a result of this approach by organizations, larger enterprise vendors are facilitating this trend by adding 'check box' social features into their software.

Telligent Social Suite for SharePoint is a great example of this. Microsoft SharePoint provides enough social capabilities to check the box, but people find that after scratching the surface there is often a need to invest hundreds of thousands of dollars with professional services organizations to transform SharePoint to be social. This is a flawed approach. It is best to let Microsoft SharePoint do what it does best and instead integrate best-of-breed social business tools into Microsoft SharePoint.

Social is not a destination, but rather, a set of experiences dictated by the type of interaction the consumer desires. Leaders recognize that social isn't just another set of features, but an integrated set of experiences that touches multiple systems. In some ways it’s the ultimate middle-ware: connecting people to one another and to the information they need. The key to this is that social flows across the different work tools that people use every day – email, document management, mobile, the intranet and more.

Key takeaway: Successful strategies rely on applying technology to maximize the reach for each of the channels that the business has invested in, not to create yet another silo of communication – this reach is achieved through integration.

3. Provides Clear, Measurable Impact to the Business

Social can provide clear, measurable impact to your business. But, in order for this to happen, you have to identify the use case that social will address and be sure to link your community strategy back to your corporate objectives.

There are many proven use cases to choose from, both internally for your business or externally for your customers. One of the most frequently cited examples is customer support - through the use of social communities, businesses can provide tools that enable customers to support one another. This has a very easy and direct (and proven) measurement.

But, what about some of the use cases that aren’t as clear, such as employee networking? How, do you measure the value of enabling employees to better connect with one another? Empirically we know that enabling employees to connect with peers and network internally has benefits to communication, decision making and morale. And while this is likely the most valuable measurement - the holy grail of social – it is the most difficult to measure. I often equate it to the phone or email – how do you measure the value of these devices?

That is why shifting from a tactical approach to a more strategic one can help overcome these measurement difficulties. Any well-run organization has clearly defined corporate objectives that articulate the value proposition they expect to deliver. Communities should be viewed as enablers of corporate objectives, and in order to generate the highest possible return from a community, it is crucial that you link community strategy to corporate objectives. However, focusing on measuring ROI too quickly can actually be detrimental to a community’s success. In our World Class Community Whitepaper we walk you through the three steps to get to ROI – once these steps are completed, it is then reasonable to investigate how much value has been created and to calculate ROI.

Key takeaway: Communities associated with corporate objectives have the potential to create a tremendous amount of value. However, you must also keep in mind that you need to find the applicable measurements for the use cases you choose.

Now it’s time to take a look at your organization’s social strategy. Does your social business strategy currently include all three core elements? If not, or even if it does but you are just looking for information on how to enhance it, then we recommend that you join us May 22^nd for our social support webinar that will touch on the first core element of focusing on business outcomes. Learn firsthand from leading experts as they discuss strategies for enhancing support with social media and online communities. Register today!

Blog Post: Telligent Introduces New Guide for Bringing Social Media into Business

Tiffany Henry — Thu, 03 May 2012 13:00:00 GMT

eBook kickstarts the education of social media & online communities and how they fit together

(DALLAS, TX) May 3, 2012 — Telligent, a leader in social community software for the enterprise, today announced the release of its newest eBook, “Social 101: Your Guide to Social Media & Online Communities for Business.”

Social has become the new normal, but the incredible array of options available can be overwhelming. That is why Telligent created this eBook as a resource to help demystify the social jargon and shed light on how organizations use the combination of social networks, applications and communities together in order to accomplish real business objectives.

The new Social 101 eBook is packed with advice, research and statistics from leading industry analysts and social media experts. The eBook also includes key insights from Telligent’s customers who have solved various business problems through the implementation of social communities. Essentially, this eBook is a primer for newbies to social business that encompasses everything from the basics of what social media is to advice on how to create a social business strategy that aligns with the goals of your organization.

“We want to take the fear factor out of social media for newcomers and help businesses understand that there is enormous potential to deliver value to your organization through social media and online communities,” said Wendy Gibson, Telligent Chief Marketing Officer. “No matter what industry your organization falls into, this new Social 101 eBook is a must read for anyone wanting to learn how social networks and communities can be used to create or accelerate their social strategy.”

The first section of the publication is open online at http://telligent.com/resources/p/social-101-ebook.aspx. For more information about Telligent visit www.Telligent.com.

About Telligent

One of the pioneers in enterprise social community and workforce collaboration software, Telligent helps companies worldwide to implement social communities for their employees, customers and partners. Its powerful community development platform allows customers and partners to customize their community experiences and build award-winning applications on top of the platform.

Telligent differentiates itself with an ease of business and a level of confidence to which seasoned and successful organizations are accustomed. With a customer-focused culture, Telligent sets the social enterprise standard for positive business outcomes. With Telligent, thousands of organizations worldwide have created successful communities that drive collaboration, communication, innovation, networking and support, including American Marketing Association, Dell, Microsoft, Psion, U.S. Department of Defense - All Partners Access Network (APAN) and more.

Learn more about Telligent by visiting telligent.com.

# # #

FOR MORE INFORMATION:

Telligent Media Contacts

US
Tiffany Henry
thenry@telligent.com
+1 (214) 420 1350

UK
Elena Savvides
esavvides@telligent.com
+44 (0) 203 178 3012

Blog Post: Social 101 eBook – a Primer for Newbies to Social Business

Wendy Gibson — Thu, 03 May 2012 13:00:00 GMT

Do employees at your organization spend countless hours researching social networks and social applications? Does the term “social online communities” ring a bell, but you are unsure how it ties into gaining tangible benefits for your organization? Does the concept of social seem daunting for individuals at your organization? If you answered yes to any of these questions, then we have the perfect resource for you!

Social is the new normal – it is everywhere and is becoming a crucial part in both our personal and professional lives. And as social continues to inch more and more into our lives, it is almost mandatory to possess a thorough understanding of what it is and how to get started.

We created a resource called the Social 101 eBook for people who are new to social media and are looking to learn how to use social networks, applications and online communities together in order to accomplish real business objectives.

Take a look at our table of contents and see what you will learn:

Social doesn’t have to be confusing. This eBook makes learning easy – it includes a range of everything from real-world examples to in-depth definitions to get you started.

So what are you waiting for? Download your complimentary copy of the eBook and jumpstart your social education today. We also encourage you to begin to put some of the information you learn from the eBook into action and get social by sharing it with a friend or colleague!

Blog Post: Telligent Nominated for Eloqua Markie Award

Wendy Gibson — Tue, 01 May 2012 14:45:00 GMT

Digital marketing, including the use of social communities, is changing the way marketers reach, interact, and supply value to their customers. At Telligent, we are leveraging our marketing automation investment from Eloqua to enhance the value we can provide to our prospects and customers. Combined with Telligent’s social community software, we are utilizing Eloqua to help blend owned and earned content and to drive a better return on our marketing and sales investments. We are ecstatic to be nominated for an Eloqua Markie Award, which specifically honors companies who Eloqua feels excels in the marketing field. WHY did we hype up our marketing?

Last year around the end of December, as many companies were winding down and getting ready for the holidays, the marketing and sales team at Telligent was hard at work designing a new marketing automation and lead scoring practice for the organization. This was by no means an easy feat, but we knew the incredible value that Eloqua could bring to our organization by creating automated, relevant communications for our customers and prospects.

As we transitioned to version 10 of the Eloqua Team application, we took the opportunity to revamp our marketing and sales funnel around best practices provided by Eloqua Expert Services – we worked to align our sales and marketing departments, automate campaigns and improve the overall speed and performance of the team.

Thanks, in part, to hard work and effort and to Eloqua’s software, we are now able to create dynamic campaigns that help us spread the Telligent word – how social community software can be used to improve business processes and enhance the services organizations provide to their partners, employees and customers.

Please join me in congratulating the Telligent marketing and sales teams for being nominated as a finalist for a prestigious Eloqua Markie Award as European Rookie of the Year! Eloqua just announced the finalists today; the big reveal of the winners is May 16th at the Eloqua Experience Europe.

Blog Post: The Top 5 Reasons Your Digital Marketing Strategy Needs a Social Community

Elena Savvides — Fri, 27 Apr 2012 10:45:00 GMT

Interactive digital marketing is a fine art – a balancing act, if you will – of supplying just the right amount of information to get people interested without bombarding them with a pushy, overly-intrusive sales approach. Websites are the digital marketers shop window – they are a place to show off their unique nature and entice buyers. So ask yourself, when was the last time you read an independent customer review? Or better still, when was the last time you visited a corporate website and were given the chance to vote or give your ideas on a new product?

If the medium for sales is your corporate website, then what’s the forum to receive product reviews, gather customer feedback, build brand loyalty and conduct market research? A social community of course! Here at Telligent, we firmly believe no good digital marketing strategy can be successful without some form of social community. Many companies are still using what we like to call “Managed Communities”, which are communities started and managed by the organization, but run on consumer-facing social networking sites such as Facebook or LinkedIn. However there are some groundbreaking global brands doing amazing work with “Owned Communities” through the use of Telligent’s social community software and Insites consultancy expertise. Two great examples include: Ben & Jerry’s i-Scream Community and Philips’ Sleep Well Community.

So, if social community is here to stay, what are some of the reasons you, as a digital marketer, should be looking to implement an “Owned Community” as part of your core marketing strategy? Well, here are our top 5:

Gain Customer Insights with market research online communities (MROCs) for a social twist on research that saves you time and money
Reduce Marketing Spend by increasing website traffic through relevant content that reduces SEO spending while attracting new customers
Rally Brand Advocates by empowering fans to share brand updates with friend directly to social networks like Twitter and Facebook
Launch New Products by creating product-level communities of interest to capture early feedback and fuel word-of-mouth marketing
Build Brand Loyalty by creating fun, interactive online communities to engage fans and hosting private, members-only communities for VIPs

Why not take a look at some of the Telligent case studies to see exactly how customers such as Cadbury, API Healthcare, Reader’s Digest & Microsoft are realizing some of these benefits through their owned communities.

By now you’re probably asking yourself, where do I start and how do I learn more? Luckily for you, we’re one step ahead! Join us and Insites on Day Two of the London iStrategy conference at 12:40pm to learn how you can transform your marketing with deep customer engagement.

Blog Post: DestinationCRM: Telligent Community, Sitecore Integration Yields Stronger Social Community Experience

Tiffany Henry — Thu, 26 Apr 2012 19:17:00 GMT

In a recent DestinationCRM article published by editor Kelly Liyakasa, it highlights the recent announcement of Telligent Connect for Sitecore. This product easily integrates Telligent Community and Sitecore by providing a full social community experience within a Sitecore-powered website – it provides companies with the tools needed to quickly integrate two leading applications – Web Content Management (WCM) and social community platform.

So why is this especially beneficial to organizations? Kelly spoke with Telligent Founder and CTO, Rob Howard, to learn more about the product and to find the answer to that very question.

Read the full article to learn more about Telligent Connect for Sitecore and how it is the ticket to building an online social presence that will wow your customer base!

Blog Post: CMSWire: Telligent Adds New Social Layer to Sitecore Websites

Tiffany Henry — Thu, 26 Apr 2012 14:25:00 GMT

Sitecore-based websites can now build in the Telligent Community social platform in order to condense more marketing, social and customer service features in one place. On Wednesday, Telligent announced Telligent Connect for Sitecore, which adds new tools to Sitecore websites that should allow for smoother customer interactions and easier communication between Web Content Management, marketing and IT teams. CMSWire writer Anthony Myers picked up on the news and highlighted the annoucnement in his recent article.

Read Anthony's full article to find out more about Telligent Connect for Sitecore.

Blog Post: Telligent Delivers a Full Social Community Experience Inside Sitecore

Tiffany Henry — Wed, 25 Apr 2012 12:00:00 GMT

Telligent Connect for Sitecore easily integrates Telligent Community inside Sitecore and allows users to view and engage in social and community content directly within a Sitecore-powered site

(DALLAS, TX) April 24, 2012 — Telligent, a leader in social community software for the enterprise, today announced Telligent Connect for Sitecore v2.5. Telligent Connect for Sitecore easily integrates Telligent Community and Sitecore by providing a full social community experience within a Sitecore-powered website.

Telligent Connect for Sitecore provides companies with the tools needed to quickly integrate two leading applications – Web Content Management (WCM) and social community platform. Using the Sitecore components, site visitors may view and engage in social and community content directly from Sitecore pages. Satisfying both the needs of marketers as well as the IT department, this allows companies to socialize their brand and web experience while removing infrastructure barriers.

Telligent Connect for Sitecore provides best-of-breed technologies for delivering both WCM and Social including:

Faster integration and decreased implementation time resulting in higher cost savings
Easier maintenance and peace-of-mind around keeping products synchronized for future upgrades through deep integration between Sitecore and Telligent
Rich social capabilities and comprehensive integration points including 25+ Sitecore components that have been created from Telligent’s social functionality
Ability for business users to quickly add new social functionality to enhance their web experience

Rob Howard, founder and CTO of Telligent explains, “Since 2008, Telligent and Sitecore have been working together to help our joint customers provide award-winning web and social experiences. Based on customer feedback, Telligent Connect for Sitecore offers complete product synchronization and smooth integration resulting in a best-of-breed solution that our customers can depend on to create a comprehensive social community experience."

Foundation 648 is a Telligent partner that has built its business on providing web solutions for companies that use the web to reach customers. “Telligent Connect for Sitecore helps our customers enhance their websites, simplifies future upgrades and increases the overall value we deliver to the business,” said Patrick Poer, founder and president, Foundation648.

“Telligent Connect for Sitecore was driven by marketing and IT’s need to blend social community capabilities with existing web experience. As social media continues to permeate all aspects of business communication, companies need this type of solution to bring together their existing best-in-class web content management system with an advanced social community platform like Telligent,” says Darren Guarnaccia, senior vice president of product marketing, Sitecore.

For more information about Telligent Connect for Sitecore v2.5 visit http://telligent.com/solutions/p/sitecore.aspx.

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About Telligent

Learn more about Telligent by visiting telligent.com.

FOR MORE INFORMATION:

Telligent Media Contacts

US
Tiffany Henry
thenry@telligent.com
+1 (214) 420 1350

UK
Elena Savvides
esavvides@telligent.com
+44 (0) 203 178 3012

Blog Post: Telligent Community + Sitecore Integrate to Enhance Social Community

Wendy Gibson — Wed, 25 Apr 2012 12:00:00 GMT

A better social community experience with Telligent and Sitecore together!

As the demand for social continues to skyrocket, many IT and marketing departments struggle with how to integrate social communities and their existing Web solutions. They need a way to marry top-of-the-line Web content management systems with best-of-breed social solutions like Telligent’s award-winning platform.

For the past couple of years, Telligent and Web content management system provider Sitecore have been working together to develop new ways to improve Web and social experiences. Now their efforts have given us Telligent Connect for Sitecore v2.5, a comprehensive solution that connects Telligent’s social community platform with Sitecore’s system.

Telligent Connect for Sitecore gives business partners a competitive edge with the ability to help clients finish projects faster. Marketers get a boost from faster updates to website content and social functionality that engages visitors with social content more effectively. IT can enjoy the fact the solution is easy to maintain, integrate and implement.

Ultimately, the more immersed social becomes in our culture, the more we absolutely need to provide customers with an environment that supports effective branding and a growing online presence. Telligent Connect for Sitecore is the ticket to building an online social presence that will wow your customer base.

Just getting started with social and community software? Check out our social starter kit.

Blog Post: Telligent Newsletter - April 2012

Chris Kee — Tue, 24 Apr 2012 19:56:00 GMT

WEBINAR: INDUSTRY ANALYST + CUSTOMER CARE EXPERTS TACKLE SOCIAL CUSTOMER SERVICE

Interested in how you can receive measurable ROI by using a social support community to reach your customers? Seeking to gain insight on strategies for enhancing B2B or B2C support with social media and online communities? If so, then join us for our upcoming webinar May 22, from 11am-12pm CDT.

Presenters:

Guest speaker & leading customer service analyst Kate Leggett from Forrester Research, Inc.
Customer care experts from Cox Communications and Kaseya

A NEW SOCIAL VINTAGE: GUILD OF SOMMELIERS POURS UP SUCCESS WITH COMMUNITY STRATEGY

Wine enthusiasts get social - The Guild of Sommeliers, a non-profit, member-run organization committed to educating and fostering networking among wine service professionals and wine enthusiasts across the United States, demonstrates a successful way to get social with its members.

Its strategy? It created a comprehensive social strategy layering a members-only online community with direct engagement on Facebook, Twitter and Vimeo, which has ultimately increased membership sevenfold over four years through social engagement and knowledge sharing. Find out more about the community the Guild of Sommeliers created to foster knowledge sharing of all topics related to wine.

GAIN TANGIBLE BENEFITS WITH A SOCIAL SUPPORT COMMUNITY: API HEALTHCARE SUCCESS STORY

API Healthcare is the largest healthcare-specific vendor of workforce management solutions to the healthcare industry. So why adopt a social support community? API Healthcare's CEO promised its clients that the company would provide them with a central platform for networking and discussions. Specifically, API Healthcare uses social to improve areas such as online support, product innovation and influential messaging.

Check out API Healthcare's recent case study to learn about the tangible benefits it gained. It offers best practices that will help as you think through your customer support goals and strategies.

JUMPSTART YOUR LEARNING WITH SOCIAL WORKSHOPS

We just wrapped up the six-city Get Social Tour last month. We were happy to hear from attendees after the event that we'd inspired them to plot a course for a winning social strategy!

Unable to attend the tour? If so, no worries, we have a great alternative for you. Telligent is offering one-, three- and five-day Social Workshops to help jumpstart social for SharePoint; choose one today!

APRIL ISSUE

THE BIG SOCIAL UPDATE:

The countdown continues until the one-of-a-kind Texas-sized annual gathering of social community leaders. Join us in Dallas September 17-19!

#SOCBIZ BUZZ

Customer Spotlight
SmartPlanet shares how CORE4 Research rewrites consumer research rules with social communities

Buzzing Story
Rob Howard sits down with the editor of his alma mater's School of Business Magazine and talks Social

MEET & GREET EVENTS

iStrategy London
May 22-23, 2012
Stamford Bridge
London
Register Now

Social Business Forum 2012
June 4-5, 2012
Marriott Hotel
Milan
Register Now

BlogWell Chicago
July 18, 2012
Venue SIX10
Chicago, IL
Register Now for Special Discount

CORPORATE BLOG

How Communities Allow You to Profitably Scale Your Customer Support

Welcome New Customer: Guidance Software

New Case Study with Guild of Sommeliers: Get Social with Your Members

PARTNER NEWS

Our partner, Building Blocks, introduced a CAPTCHA for Telligent Community. This widget adds a CAPTCHA control to the registration form. Learn more.

Blog Post: How Communities Allow You to Profitably Scale Your Customer Support

Cecilia Edwards — Wed, 18 Apr 2012 18:15:00 GMT

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.

Blog Post: SmartPlanet: CORE4 rewrites consumer research rules with social communities

Tiffany Henry — Fri, 13 Apr 2012 16:39:00 GMT

Almost everyone at some point in time has experienced the phone call where a consumer phone survey greeted you on the other end. This method of market research has gone on for decades, but what if there was a way to organize and get feedback from a group of consumers online in order to gain efficient insight. CORE4 Research has created an online community to do just that - consumers can post their thoughts and feelings about subjects and then CORE4 aggregates and organizes the insights.

In the recent article by SmartPlanet's journalist Heather Clancy, she spoke with Henry Ho, Partner at CORE4 Research, to learn more about CORE4 Research and how it leverages Telligent Community for conducting consumer market research. CORE4 utilizes traditional research methods, however they also conduct market research through the use of online communities as an engaging way to gather and analyze consumer feedback. The social nature of the online communities where participants can engage with one another brings out different insights than research methods like the consumer phone survey mentioned above.

Read the entire article to learn first-hand from Henry Ho about CORE4Research and how the organization is infusing social in market research. Also, be sure to check out CORE4's recent case study for additional insight.

Blog Post: Guidance Software Selects Telligent Social Support for Microsoft SharePoint Package

Tiffany Henry — Wed, 11 Apr 2012 15:00:00 GMT

Dallas, Texas — April 11, 2012 — Telligent, a leader in social community software for the enterprise, today announced that Guidance Software, a world leader in digital forensics, cyber security and e-discovery solutions, has chosen the Telligent Social Support for Microsoft SharePoint package to support customer engagement.

The new joint offering from Microsoft and Telligent integrates best-in-class web content management from Microsoft SharePoint for Internet Sites 2010 and FAST Search for SharePoint with Telligent’s leading social community platform.

“At Guidance Software, when it came to customer driven support, we were looking for a standard platform for all of our web properties that also integrated the community experience,” said Robert Johnson, Guidance Software Senior Web Systems Architect. “What drew us to select the Telligent Social Support for Microsoft SharePoint package was its unique pre-integrated solution that contained all the essential components that we were looking for to enable us to accomplish our business objectives.”

“We are thrilled to have Guidance Software as a customer,” said Steve Poncini, Telligent SVP of Sales. “We look forward to helping Guidance Software deliver enhanced customer driven support through a seamless social and collaborative experience.”

# # #

About Guidance Software

Guidance Software is recognized worldwide as the industry leader in digital investigative solutions. Its EnCase® platform, with more than 40,000 licenses distributed worldwide, provides the foundation for government, corporate and law enforcement organizations to conduct thorough, network-enabled, and court-validated computer investigations of any kind, such as responding to e-discovery requests, conducting internal investigations, responding to regulatory inquiries or performing data and compliance auditing - all while maintaining the integrity of the data. The EnCase® Enterprise platform is used by numerous Federal Civilian and Defense agencies, more than half of the Fortune 100, and thousands attend Guidance Software's renowned training programs annually. For more information about Guidance Software, visit www.guidancesoftware.com.

About Telligent

Learn more about Telligent by visiting http://telligent.com.

FOR MORE INFORMATION:

Telligent Media Contacts

US
Tiffany Henry
thenry@telligent.com
+1 (214) 420 1350

UK
Elena Savvides
esavvides@telligent.com
+44 (0) 203 178 3012

Blog Post: Welcome New Customer: Guidance Software

Steve Poncini — Wed, 11 Apr 2012 09:00:00 GMT

We are very excited to announce Guidance Software as one of our newest customers. Guidance Software is a world leader in digital forensics, cyber security and e-discovery solutions. The organization is also recognized worldwide as the industry leader in digital investigative solutions.

In an effort to enhance its customer driven support, Guidance Software selected the Telligent Social Support for Microsoft SharePoint package. This package combines our advanced social technology with Microsoft’s web content and search capabilities to make the process of introducing social community a smooth one for customers like Guidance Software. The real value Guidance Software will gain from this package is that it’s a pre-integrated solution that encompasses all the components that they are looking for to create an integrated community experience around support.

As social continues to become more and more entrenched in business objectives, Telligent Social Suite for SharePoint is the perfect solution for companies, like Guidance Software, looking to add social to SharePoint.

Please join me in welcoming Guidance Software to the Telligent family!

Blog Post: New Case Study with Guild of Sommeliers: Get Social with Your Members

Wendy Gibson — Mon, 09 Apr 2012 14:45:00 GMT

Thinking about how to get your members more engaged? Check out Guild of Sommeliers for tips to boost your social strategy.

The Guild of Sommeliers is a non-profit, member-run organization, committed to educating and fostering networking among wine service professionals and wine enthusiasts across the U.S.

Its strategy? It created a comprehensive social strategy layering a members-only online community with direct engagement on Facebook, Twitter and Vimeo. They created the community to foster knowledge sharing of all topics related to wine – laws, regions, varieties and more. Plus, members network with one another to find jobs, discuss upcoming events and encourage active development of the profession

Check out this video to learn more about how its online community operates.

And be sure to download the case study to learn how exactly Guild grew its dues-paying membership base seven times over within four years, operating almost exclusively with online social engagement and community.

You’ll pick up some tips on how they’re accomplishing their objectives with a private member networking online community. Learn how Guild is engaging members with one another in a social community for in-depth conversations and resources that entice members to stay active and engaged:

Discussion Forums and Study Groups: Members can join or create a discussion thread in forums
Read Feature Articles and Interviews: In depth Feature articles on wine regions and interviews with industry leaders
Get Current Wine Industry News: Read news feeds from leading industry publications. Members also get wine region maps and other multi-media content.
Connect with Sommeliers: Extensive social networking functionality including profiles, discussions and more
Online Study Guide: An online study guide of the world's wine regions with review questions
Search Compendium Knowledge Base: Find the answers to questions and keep up to date on wine laws, wine regions or varietals. This also includes audio pronunciations of wine regions and terms.
Test Wine Knowledge: Each day when members log in, they see a new set of wine education questions and a tasting quiz. There are three daily questions which are rated easy, medium and hard
Find a Tasting Group: Post a local tasting group, or search for groups by area

Blog Post: Social is the New Normal

Richard Nguyen — Wed, 04 Apr 2012 12:50:00 GMT

Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn – these are household names in today’s world. However, as a marketing student at the University of Westminster and an Intern at Telligent, I’m more interested in how businesses can use social media to improve their own marketing initiatives. Last week, I got my answer from an innovative man, Rob Howard, the Founder and CTO of Telligent who’s philosophy is simple – “Social is the New Normal”.

Last Thursday, 29 March, the University of Westminster was privileged to have Rob speak as a guest lecturer. Telligent is known for helping some of the world’s largest organisations to engage with their customers and employees more effectively – companies such as Dell, Microsoft, and Psion, as well as not-for-profit and membership organisations such as, Macmillan Cancer Support, APAN and the British Dental Association. Rob’s presentation was nothing short of highly engaging and truly hypnotising!

Now I can say I understand the fundamental principles of why businesses today should adopt an online social community presence. For me, it’s no longer about B2B or B2C marketing, it’s about P2P – “People to People” marketing. Having an online community allows you to own and manage your data, your relationships with customers and your brand presence.

The message here is clear – “Social is the New Normal.”

But for me it’s even more than that – its “Social Communities are the New Normal!”

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Blog Post: Guidance Software Selects Telligent Social Support for Microsoft SharePoint Package

Blog Post: Welcome New Customer: Guidance Software

Blog Post: New Case Study with Guild of Sommeliers: Get Social with Your Members

Blog Post: Social is the New Normal