Can I get some support, around here?
For many companies, the use of an online community's first goal is SUPPORT. In this day and age, customers turn first to the Internet to find a solution to a problem or answer to a question. It is no wonder that more and more companies rely on their online communities to help increase customer satisfaction and reduce the amount of support overhead. With Telligent Analytics, companies can monitor support efficiency and identify content anomalies that impact their support life cycle. Let's meet the Support tab. The Support tab is a series of reports that ship with Telligent Analytics.
'We the people...'
A key ingredient in a sustainable online support community is the users. Telligent Analytics highlights four category of users who are pivotal in the support life cycle. They are...
- Contributors
- Moderators
- Top Answerers
- Top Askers
The Askers are those individuals who are seeding the support communities with questions. One hopes that they perform a search prior to posting their question to discover if it has already been asked; but either way, when a question is posted, it is critical to have a fast "time-to-solution," or time to get answered. For those users who post a question, getting a timely and accurate response is critical to their overall satisfaction and will hopefully increase their likelihood in returning to the online community in the future. In Telligent Analytics, companies can quickly identify who the most active Askers are via the Asker People report. This report looks across the network and, using a variety of factors, determines who the users are who are most fit the Asker personality.
The Contributors and Answerers help in getting a quick and verified responses. This is crucial in the support lifecycle. Telligent Analytics makes it easy to identify forums that have a rapid response time and those that need attention. Via the Reply Rate graph and Answer Rate graph within the Support section, one can quickly spot areas of strengths and areas of weaknesses.
The Reply Rate graph enables someone to understand how quickly questions are being addressed. From the time when the question was first posted to the time when the first reply was made, this information highlights the reaction time of the community.
The Answer Rate graph closes the support life cycle. It illustrates how quickly questions posted have received a verified answer. A verified answer is one in which someone with proper permissions has reviewed the potential answer and marked it as verified. Each community typically has an answer rate goal. For example, having 80% of questions resolved within 24 hours. This graph enables the reader to evaluate their goal against actual results.
With this report, the reader can manipulate the view to narrow in on specific information. For example, the reader can deselect the 7-day and 3-day options to see only the 1-day line.
The reader can zoom in on a specific day and see detailed information surrounding the specific questions and answers posted for that day.
Within the Support tab, the reader can identify the attractiveness of their online communities and see how many new Contributors they had. This helps aid in understanding how many users felt comfortable, were able to discover the forums, and were able to respond and/or answer a question.
The Support tab highlight the top Answerers. These are people whose activity within the online community most resembles the behavioral traits of an answer person. These people are key to your community. They help keep the life cycle moving and they provide a key ingredient to a healthy and self-sustaining community environment.
The Moderators help provide structure to online forums. They are the people who ensure content continuity; ensure that rules are followed, and often play an expert role in one or more areas of the forums. In Telligent Analytics, the reader can easily identify these persons and their efficacy as a moderator.
Calling S.O.S.
There is nothing worse than not receiving an answer to a question. As a critical part of a successful online support community, it is key to easily identify areas that are quickly sinking. With the Worst and Best Time-to-Solutions report on the Support tab, the reader can easily identify where subject matter experts are most needed.
A successful support community needs a life cycle. A successful company needs to be able to analyze, track and share data uncovered about this life cycle. With Telligent Analytics, the information is there and waiting to be utilized.