Customers expectations have changed. Customers no longer want to pick up the phone to call you every time they have a question. They are sick of long hold times, incorrect answers from uninformed agents, and having to call you back multiple times. Today, customers expect to be able to find those answers online. Learn how Okta used community to drive down website support costs while driving engagement.

1. How Okta Created a Customer Community to
Drive Engagement and Manage Support Costs
Larry Aronovitz, Vice President of Customer Support, Okta
Dion Hinchcliffe, Chief Strategy Officer, 7Summits

2. Speakers
Larry Aronovitz
Vice President of Customer Support, Okta
@laronovitz
Michael Stone
SVP Marketing, Community Cloud
@communitycloud
Dion Hinchcliffe
Chief Strategy Officer, 7Summits
@dhinchcliffe

3. #7Scommunities
You’ll be entered to win one of ten copies of
SOCIAL BUSINESS BY DESIGN
By Dion Hinchcliffe, 7Summits
TWEET & WIN!

4. Customer Communities
Success Story: Okta Customer Support Community
Best Practices for Implementation, Activation & Adoption
Q&A
What We’ll Cover Today

5. Michael Stone
SVP Marketing, Community Cloud
Salesforce
Communities for Customer Self-Service

6. Customers Expect to Find Their Answers Online
Source: Forrester
of customers prefer to use
a company’s website to
find answers
72%

7. Connect With Your Customers in a Whole New Way
Reduce service calls by guiding customers to
online knowledge articles and Q&A
Enable customers to connect and answer each
other’s questions
Engage your service agents with customer
questions and discussions
Provide an engaging branded and mobile
community experience
Enable your customers to help themselves, and each other.
Increase in customer satisfaction
+ 45%

8. Community Built On The Customer Success Platform
Customer
Communities
Partner
Communities
Employee
Communities
Multitenant Cloud
Apps SalesAnalytics Service Marketing

9. Create a
Community
of Action
Connect to Business
Take action right from the community
Connect Smarter
With personalized community content
Connect Anywhere
Great branded experience on any device

10. Larry Aronovitz
Vice President of Customer Support
Okta
Success Story: Okta Customer Support Community
#7Scommunities

11. About Okta
Okta is the foundation for secure connections between people and technology.
Okta allows people to access applications on any device at any time, while still
enforcing strong security protections.
Integrates with existing directories and identity systems, as well as 4,000+
applications.
#7Scommunities

12. Case For Change
Multiple “islands” of information
Inconsistent look and feel
Confusing UX
Community in infancy of development
Significant time and effort spent administering site
#7Scommunities

13. © Okta and/or its affiliates. All rights reserved. Okta Confidential© Okta and/or its affiliates. All rights reserved. Okta Confidential
Strategic Objectives Derived From Customer Feedback
Customer Pain Points:
“Your communication is too ad hoc, causing me
to disregard important information.”
“I can’t find the document or answer I am
looking for.”
“I don’t know when things are released.”
“I can’t find an expert.”
“I’m bombarded by information.”
“Okta is growing fast, it’s getting harder to get
an answer, how do I find it myself?”
“Where do I get help?”
“How can I request features and
enhancements.”
Strategic Objectives:
1. Streamline Customer Communications
1. Drive Self-Service Support & Case Deflection
1. Engage Customers in Product Lifecycle

14. Key Use Cases
Federated Search
Integration With
Knowledge Base
Answers / Identify Best
Answer
Suggest Features /
Vote On Priorities
Connected, Social
Experience
Mobile Device Access
#7Scommunities

15. © Okta and/or its affiliates. All rights reserved. Okta Confidential© Okta and/or its affiliates. All rights reserved. Okta Confidential
Utilized Framework To Evaluate Options
#7Scommunities

16. Welcome to the New Help Center and Okta Community
#7Scommunities

17. Okta Help Center – Gateway To Community, Information
Community prominently
featured
Question feed from the
Community
Call out to release notes
#7Scommunities

18. • Announcement section
• Three main navigational areas
• Ask a question
• Join a discussion
• Request a feature
• Unified Okta branded site – clean UX
• Active users / subject matter experts
• Common header, featuring federated
search
• Integrated data architecture allows
auto subscribers to key groups
Okta Community – Connected, Social, Scalable

19. Okta Community

20. © Okta and/or its affiliates. All rights reserved. Okta Confidential© Okta and/or its affiliates. All rights reserved. Okta Confidential
Results – Increased Engagement
5x
3x
• 3x Initial Growth After Launch
• 30-40x Growth Target After 1
Year
• 5x Initial Growth After Launch
• 100x+ Growth Target After 1 Year
Avg. Daily Questions Daily Active Users
#7Scommunities

21. © Okta and/or its affiliates. All rights reserved. Okta Confidential© Okta and/or its affiliates. All rights reserved. Okta Confidential
• Have Clearly Defined Strategic Objectives
• Translate Objectives Into Key Use Cases
• Pick the Right Partner
• Establish Formal Milestones Where Signoff Is Required
• Leave Plenty of Time For Bug Testing & Revisions
• Involve End Users In Feedback & UX Texting
• Drive Promotion & Engagement – Heavy Lifting Is After The Launch
• Define Key Metrics; Rigorously Measure To Ensure Tracking To Success
Recommendations
#7Scommunities

22. Dion Hinchcliffe
Chief Strategy Officer
7Summits
Insights on Implementation, Activation & Adoption
#7Scommunities

23. Motivation: Why Do Companies Like Okta Build Communities?
#7Scommunities

24. Best Practices: Creating conditions for success
#1 - Address Technology Barriers
Help customers remove friction from
interacting with your company
#2 - Focus on the Audience
Customer Empowerment vs.
Technology Deployment
#3 - Promote Adoption
Proactive Activation of
Champions and Influencers
#4 - Optimization and Management
Ongoing Measurement and
Professional Nurturing
#7Scommunities

25. Getting started
#1 - Develop
Coherent
Approach and
Alignment
#2 - Empathy for
Customers.
Understand high
and low points of
their experience.
#3 - Prioritize
features with
highest business
value and impact
#4 - Visualize the
interaction - Future
State of User
Experience
#5 - Set the direction.
Roadmap Informed by
opportunities,
business needs
#7Scommunities

26. Community
Management
Text
Performance
Management
Activation,
Enhancements,
Adoption
Community Vision
and Objectives
▪ Engagement–Nurturing and encouraging
user interaction
▪ Moderation / Content Curation –
Responding to user needs, escalation and
content needs
▪ Reporting– reporting key data points to
measure health of community
▪ Configuration– Optimize community
configuration to provide the desired user
experience
▪ Design Enhancements – UX and visual
design enhancements
▪ Technical Enhancements – Add -Ons/
Integration (as needed)
▪ Marketing levers and tactics –specific
tactics and channels to be acted upon to
attract and motivate target audience
segments
▪ Metrics – identify what needs
to be measured for each use
case and business objective
▪ Frequency – specify how
often to conduct the
measurement
▪ Expected progress with
each measurement – identify
the amount of progress you
expect to make against your
objectives at certain times
7Summits Community Success Framework
#7Scommunities

27. ▪ Validate readiness of Initial
Deployment
▪ Promote environments
▪ Operationalize and schedule
integration
▪ Initiate Community Activities
▪ Refine/Monitor and Adapt
▪ Confirm business objectives and
success criteria
▪ Define use cases and related
requirements
▪ Finalize initial release, and establish
future release roadmap
▪ Finalize Community Design, data
modeling and Structure
Define and Design
Approach & Structure
Launch
Deploy & Activate
▪ Infrastructure and Security
▪ User Enablement
▪ Chatter Groups Enablement
▪ Object updates and Tab Enablement
▪ Home page implementation
▪ Header Navigation enablement
▪ Profile and Chatter Pages
▪ Testing
Build and Test
Functionality & Solution
How Okta and 7Summits Developed The Support Community
Week 1 - 2 Weeks 2 - 7 Weeks 7 - 8
#7Scommunities

28. PARTNERED WITH SOCIAL
INDUSTRY LEADERS
COMPREHENSIVE CAPABILITIES
AWARDS / RECOGNITIONS
About 7Summits
2009
FOUNDED OUR MISSION COMMUNITIES BUILT
100+
Creating online communities that transform
businesses
and enhance people’s lives
• Financial Services
• Manufacturing & High Tech
• Consumer
• Healthcare
• Higher Education
INDUSTRY FOCUS
#7Scommunities

29. #7Scommunities
You’ll be entered to win one of ten copies of
SOCIAL BUSINESS BY DESIGN
By Dion Hinchcliffe, 7Summits
TWEET & WIN!

30. Q&A
Larry Aronovitz, Vice President of Customer Support, Okta
Dion Hinchcliffe, Chief Strategy Officer, 7Summits
#7Scommunities

31. Thank you