4 Ways to Make Your Community a Total Flop

DZONE SOFTWARE(919) 238-7100
4 Ways to Make Your Community
A Total Flop

Customer Care Account Representative,
DZone Software

Director of Customer Care,
DZone Software

Co-CEO and VP of Development,
Safe Software, Inc.

Knowledge Senior Consultant,
SAP Hybris

Why Launch a Community?
86% of Fortune 500 Companies report
communities provide insight into
customer needs.
Source: Mycustomer.com

72% of customers prefer self-service
to resolve support issues over picking
up the phone or sending an email.
Source: Forrester

89% of surveyed workers reported
wasting 30 minutes or more per day
due to a lack of centralized knowledge
and employee engagement.
Source: Salary.com

30 minutes a day per employee = 2.5 hours a week
130 hours a year
16.25 days a year
3.25 weeks a year
That’s over 3 man weeks of wasted time per year for
every employee and 6 man years of wasted time
total for a 100 person company!
6
Man years
wasted
$78,000
Average loaded cost
for a knowledge worker
Wasted per year at a
100 person company
X =

According to Gartner, 70% of online communities fail:
1. No Launch Plan
2. No Community Guidelines
3. Failure to Engage Your Community
4. Not Evolving with Your Community

DZONE SOFTWARE
1. Establish community purpose and audience
2. Identify community goals
3. Plan, prep, and promote
4. Soft launch
5. Define community success
P I T F A L L # 1

DZONE SOFTWARE
• Share knowledge
• Drive innovation and creative thinking
• Increase customer satisfaction ratings
• Decrease support costs
• Identify advocates and influencers
• Increase collaboration and productivity
P I T F A L L # 1

DZONE SOFTWARE
• Who is your target audience?
• Industry
• Demographic
• Title
• What are their concerns, needs and interests?
• Where can you find your audience?
• What value does your community offer them?
P I T F A L L # 1

DZONE SOFTWARE
• Knowledge hoarding  Centralized shared knowledge
• Costs of traditional support  Self-service support
• Frustrated customers  Increased customer satisfaction
• Knowledge loss  Knowledge capture & transfer
• “Cost of a question”  Boost in productivity
• Organizational silos  Collaboration
P I T F A L L # 1

2. Prep
• Pre-populated content
(articles, posts, video, Q&A)
Plan, Prep, and Promote
1. Plan key stakeholder
involvement
• Administrators
• Community Managers
• Champion Users
• Management
3. Promote
• Social Media
• Website
• Email campaigns
• Events
• User training

DZONE SOFTWARE
• Identify issues
• Test moderation capabilities
• Provide feedback on the workflow
• Report any errors
• Make improvements before full launch
P I T F A L L # 1

• Increased customer satisfaction
• Decreased support costs
• Knowledge sharing
• High engagement
• Increased demand generation
• Improved brand awareness and customer advocacy
• Innovative ideas and collaboration
P I T F A L L # 1

• 7,300 new members joined the
community in 2015
• 7,400 questions were created, with
56% answered
• Average time to answer was two days
• 1,200 Best Answers
“It’s not enough to answer
questions; we wanted a community
that recognized users for their
quality contributions and
encouraged them to actively
participate.”
P I T F A L L # 1

• Users Joined Since November 2015: 1,300+
• 30 New Users Joining Per Week
• Questions Asked: 3,425
• Answers to Questions: 4,235
• Comments Made: 3,769
• Answers Accepted: 2,096
“We want a community that entices our users to
come back – to come back for answers, to come
back to help others, to come back to help us
make our product better, to come back and learn.”
P I T F A L L # 1

• Set user behavior expectations
• Help users meet expectations in unison
• Avoid community chaos
• Keep community organized and user-friendly
P I T F A L L # 2

Failure to Engage Your Community

If You Build It,
They Will Come

DZONE SOFTWARE
• Passionate, but maintains control of the community
• Thick-skinned, but sensitive to user needs
• Driven, but still helpful to the community audience
• Personable, but always professional
P I T F A L L # 3

“The goal is to provide
inspiring information that
moves people to action.”
Guy Kawasaki
• Promote the community
• Encourage user interaction
• Highlight top users and content
• Ensure guidelines are followed
• Research ways to strengthen community experienced
• Review metrics
P I T F A L L # 3

Not Evolving with Your Community

DZONE SOFTWARE
• What are my community’s strengths?
• What are my community’s weaknesses?
• Are new questions being asked?
• Are user needs being addressed?
P I T F A L L # 4

DZONE SOFTWARE
• Ask community for feedback – are expectations
being met?
• Evolve with your audience’s needs:
o Launch another community
o Create a separate Space or sub-Space to address new questions
o Refresh content to address new challenges, opportunities, and
questions
o Add content that appeals to new audiences
P I T F A L L # 4

AnswerHub helps enterprise organizations build
and optimize their knowledge ecosystems
through knowledge-driven support (KDS) and
knowledge-driven productivity (KDP).

Questions?

Let us help you launch
your community!
DZone Software
dzonesoftware.com
info@dzonesoftware.com
919-238-7100

4 Ways to Make Your Community a Total Flop

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