The rise of free and open source software has seen a substantial increase in the number of discussion forums that provide technical support to users. It is such a standard part of the landscape, that when you start a new technical project, one of the first things to do is to find the places where the experts gather to help newbies.
What kinds of resources are offered and consumed, depends to a great extent on the active size and activity of the community. Highly active groups, with lots of new users might offer an Internet Relay Chat channel, where experts and would-be experts can give immediate feedback on questions. Less active and smaller communities may have simple threaded discussion forums or congregate around comments to articles on a blog.
Many of these special interest groups maintain a Wiki – a self-service website, where Joe Random can create pages. The most famous example of a Wiki, and the progress that has been made in understanding how to manage the information that is supplied, especially when there are commercial interests in play, is Wikipedia.
These forums are all constructed around a shared interest in an area, and in problems that can be publicly expressed. You won’t find many public forums that are devoted to helping people to login to their banking facilities, resolve specific instances of credit card payment problems, or diagnose authentication problems for their online share trading account.
There’s a separation line between customer service – where you are the only person affected by a specific decision, and a general answer is unhelpful – and technical support – where if your problem is resolved, it may help others.
So, if uSwitch answers a specific question in Twitter about a person looking for a resource, or gets feedback about site features, that’s a great use of social media. It provides information that other users might find helpful.
On the other hand, Google doesn’t grasp this difference between public conversations that help other users and conversations that should only be held in private between the customer and the service provider. Unless you are a large customer, you’ll access Google customer services through the public forums. But answering a question about why a specific persons’ credit card hasn’t been processed for a specific transaction, or when a specific persons’ adverts will be reviewed, has no value to the other users in the forum. The answers to those questions provide no illumination or assistance to anyone else. But unless individual users pose individual questions, they don’t get attention – so the forum can degenerate into highly repetitive content, rather than highly informative content.
Summary
Although there is an overlap between customer service and support services, there are components of the provider-client relationship that should be kept private, and if published do nothing to improve the relationship with third parties. On the other hand, a lot of questions asked of customer service staff have generic answers – where a specific response to a questioner may be to direct them to an FAQ on the subject, and that would be of value to third parties with the same type of problem.
Distinguishing which type of interaction model should be used, and for which types of interaction with a client, is important. Selecting the wrong interaction model can create problems.
Selecting the right interaction model, can boost client confidence and interest. Showing that you’re on the ball, and providing specific answers to useful questions can demonstrate your company’s expertise and customer service values, better than any corporate mission statement.
This short article is part of a series of quick meditations on internet interaction, the uses and abuses of social media and their impact on bringing visitors to a business, and improving conversion. The previous article in this series was about reflecting how your business works, as perceived by the user.
