Creating A Unified Content Experience in A Thriving and Customer Suppoer Community - Diana Langston

© 2014 Diana Langston www.langstonstrategies.com

CREATING A UNIFIED CONTENT EXPERIENCE IN A THRIVING CUSTOMER SUPPORT COMMUNITY

Diana Langston


About me

Diana Langston Director of Content Strategy & User Engagement at Extole Extole helps marketers acquire new customers at scale by rewarding their existing customers. We are the leading referral marketing platform used by retail, financial services, and subscription brands.

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There is a direct relationship between the experience you provide and customer success. This experience shapes

how customers perceive and identify with your brand.


One Company

One Team

One Experience


§ ONE TEAM – How you can come together across the org

to craft the perception of your company and brand and set your customers up for success through a unified content experience

§ ONE EXPERIENCE – How to provide an exceptional content

experience in a community environment that encourages ongoing, long term engagement

Today, we’ll focus on building


ONE TEAM Shaping a Unified Content Experience Together


You can’t deliver a unified content experience if you aren’t working

together as one team.


One Team Means… § You depend on one another § You support each other and want team members

to succeed § Everyone has a voice, brings ideas to the table,

and is listened to § Everyone is responsible and accountable for their

role in the team § You trust each other to fulfill your role § You celebrate successes and learn from failures

together § You work together to build one outcome, one

experience


Product Content

Product Management/

UX

Client Services/

Enablement

Customer Support

Product Marke@ng/Corporate Marke@ng

Sales/ Account

Management

Engineering

Educa@on

Community


3 Steps to Unifying the Content Experience

• Define the Customer Journey and how content can support it

The Journey You Build

• Develop the “Story” that resonates throughout content types

The Story You Tell

• Create a community stakeholder team that is commiLed to delivering an experience that supports the journey

The Experience You Deliver


THE JOURNEY YOU BUILD Define the customer journey and how content can support it


The content a customer encounters along their journey is an integral part of

their success and user experience.


Don’t leave it to users to put the pieces together


Chart out the journey as a team and unify the experience for your customers.



Example Journey Team § Product Content

§ Product Management

§ Client Services

§ Account Management

§ Customer Support

§ Customer Success

§ Education

§ Community


What is it now? § Map out the current journey

§ Who do customers interact with and when

§ What type of content does a customer experience

–  Who owns creation and delivery of that content

–  What are they being informed of in that content

–  How do they access and find that content

§ How are they being guided through their current journey


What should it be? § Map out the desired journey

§ Define how they are guided through the journey

§ Who do customers interact with and when

§ What type of content does a customer experience

–  Who owns creation and delivery of that content

–  What are they being informed of in that content

–  How do they access and find that content


THE STORY YOU TELL Develop the “story” that resonates throughout content types


Why Story is Important

§ Multiple teams across your organization shape how customers perceive and identify with your brand by the story they tell.

§  Unfortunately, they are probably not telling the same story.

§  It’s time to get everyone on the same page.


Craft stories that resonate with internal teams, relate to your customers, and drive engagement.


Story Team Responsibilities

§ Develop an engaging, tested narrative internal teams stand behind – Craft the main stories and detailed messaging

§  Test stories, ensure feedback is brought back to the story team, and adjust messaging prior to rollout

§ Educate all internal teams on proper messaging to ensure it is adopted and resonates throughout the customer lifecycle

§   Content plan roll-out.


Story

Product Content

Educa@on

Client Services Community

Marke@ng


Example Story Team

§ Product Content


§ Education

§ Community

§ UX

§ Product Marketing

§ Corporate Marketing


THE EXPERIENCE YOU DELIVER

Create a community stakeholder team that is committed to delivering an experience that supports the journey and your business objectives


Ensuring you have the right content for your users is not only critical but serves as a foundational

component of your community.


Customer Community Stakeholders

§ Community Manager

§ Product Content

§ Education

§ Customer Support


§ UX

§ Marketing

**Executive sponsorship is critical**


Clear Content Ownership

§ Content Owners § Content Moderators § High-level Calendaring


ONE EXPERIENCE

Delivering an Integrated Content Experience in Your Customer Community


"High quality product content is why customers come to a support portal. A successful community leverages a great content foundation to make customers so successful, they come back to share their experiences. I require products I work with to have a tight integration with product information and the support community. "

Paul Reeves Co-Founder, BetterWorks A well funded, Palo Alto startup defining the future of work.


3 Steps to Integrating Content & Community

•  Define your Business Goal and Key Performance Indicators (KPIs)

Business Goals

•  Align content and business goals; develop and implement the best solu@on based on user and internal team needs

Content Goals & Integra@on

•  Engage users with content to help achieve your business goals

User Engagement


Community Showcase


BUSINESS GOALS Determine your business goal and KPIs




Community Goals

§ Engagement –  Customers –  Prospects

§ Customer Support –  Deflect Support Calls/

Reduce Costs –  Expert Interaction

§ Customer Success –  Satisfaction –  Loyalty –  Advocacy –  Retention

§ Customer Education –  Onboarding –  Ongoing Learning –  Q&A

§  Identify Cross-Sell/Upsell Opportunities –  Influence Revenue –  Renewal Rate Impact

§ SEO Benefit § Thought Leadership




Example Metrics

§  Level of Engagement –  90/10 rule - 90% of users log in, look around, and consume

information while 10% is highly engaged by asking questions, submitting ideas, etc.

§ Ongoing Engagement & Retention –  Chosen behavior measured month over month (e.g.,

logins, articles read, videos watched, etc.)

§  Self-Sufficiency Ratio –  Number of content views vs. number of support tickets filed

§  Impact on Renewal Rates –  Monitor customer engagement and renewals; measure

high/low level of engagement and impact on renewals


Measure the value of the content you generate by tying it to a clear business objective.


Tie product content to a deflection in support costs, ongoing engagement, and an increase in renewal rates.


CONTENT GOALS & INTEGRATION Align content goals with the business, the community & the journey


Relevant to the Customer’s Journey

Story Remains Consistent

Measurable & Supports Business Objec@ves


Community Content Types

§ Discussion Forums (Q&A) § Ideas § User Generated Tips & Tricks § Blog/News § Product Documentation/Help Articles § API Documentation § Videos § Training


Map each content goal to a specific, measurable business objective.


User Benefits of Unifying Content & Community •  Unified User Experience Between Product & Community

•  One Place to Guide Them Through Their Customer Journey

•  Consistent Story and Messaging

•  Access to Peers & Internal Experts in One Location

•  Search Across Content Types

•  Faceted Search and Filtering Across Content Types or Federated Search Across Platforms

•  Variety of Learning Resources to Cater to Different Users

•  Trusted and User Generated Content in One Location


Content Team Benefits

§ Content goals are aligned with larger business objectives

§ Ability to tie content to revenue and savings

§ Gain visibility and prove value across the org

§ Direct interaction with customers § Deliver a valuable, interactive user

experience


Integration Options

Community PlaXorm

Use the Built-‐in CMS to Author & Deliver Content

(Small Business)

Build an Integra@on Engine between Authoring Tools and Community PlaXorm (Medium to Enterprise)

Best in Breed Solu@ons

Build a UI, Search, & Analy@cs Framework around Best in

Breed Solu@ons that Delivers a Seamless Experience for Users and a Measureable Experience

for Internal Teams (Medium to Enterprise)


USER ENGAGEMENT The role gamification can play in reaching your business goals


Gamification, done right, can be the heartbeat of your community,

motivating users to participate, engage, and return.


What is gamification?

Gamification is the use of game techniques in a non-game experience and is most often used to increase customer and/or employee engagement and loyalty.

According to Gartner Research, over 70% of Global 2000 businesses will

employ gamification techniques by the end of 2014.


Gamification objectives

§ Gamification drives continuous action by using game techniques to harness user motivations. The objectives of gamification are:

–  Adoption: The motivation & trigger to participate

–  Activity: The motivation & trigger to do more

–  Retention: The motivation & trigger to come back


Motivational methods

§  The following motivational methods are borrowed from game mechanics and help create a story of growth for your users: –  Learning

–  Overcoming challenges

–  Making social connections

–  Building/finding order

–  Obtaining extrinsic rewards


Before you gamify…

§ Ensure you have relevant content already in place

that can help answer customer questions.

§ Have a strong strategy in place to get users to the

community and make it easy to navigate around

and find the information they need.

§ Map out the KPIs out want to achieve and then

target the behaviors you want to motivate in order

to reach each KPI.


Ways to gamify content

*Image from Bunchball


Player Profile & Showcase


Gamification Success Story §  First week = tripled user engagement, meaning users

logged in and performed a desired behavior, such as answering a question or contributing an idea.

§  First year = doubled their long-term engagements, had a positive impact on customer renewal rates, and benefited from a steep incline in loyal customers and brand advocates.


COMMUNITY SHOWCASE


The Optiverse

“It’s imperative when trying to grow momentum in your community that support, product documentation and resources are in the same place. Users will then start to realize that they can always find the answer to their question in the community, regardless the author.”

Heather Watkins Director of Customer Marketing Optimizely – A/B testing you’ll actually use


[email protected]


The Optiverse

§  Lithium –  Community Features

§  Zendesk –  Content Produced by

Education Team –  Support Functionality

§  Apache Solr –  Unified Search Across

Platforms and Content Types §  Qualaroo

–  Survey Tool


Optiverse Content Goals

§ Deliver a complete product ecosystem

§ Create a competitive advantage by delivering a valuable, sticky community

§  Provide users with the education resources they need regardless of type

§ Generate thought leaders and leadership pieces

§  SEO benefit by having user generated and trusted content created in a public community

§ Ability to build marketing and customer education campaigns around community content


Zendesk “If there’s no activity in your support portal, then customers will not come back and therefore the community does not grow. So you’ve got to seed the activity by attracting customers to your support portal and interacting with them and answering their questions so that they’re successful using your product. You build momentum and then customers begin to contribute by answering other customers questions. Once this happens, you’re on your way.”

Anton de Young Director of Customer Education & Community Zendesk is software for better customer service


Zendesk Support Community

support.zendesk.com


Zendesk Community Evolution

Ar@cles Created by Documenta@on

Team and Open to Comments

Support Community Manager

Product Knowledge &

Ar@cle Modera@on

Documenta@on Community Manager

Long Term Community &

Content Strategy

Community Moderator Program

16-‐20 Volunteer Moderators Who Answer Ques@ons and Create Their Tips & Tricks


Community Management

Support Community Manager

Customer advocate

In-‐depth product knowledge

Monitor comments & provide answers

Documenta@on Community Manager

Long term community strategy

Customer par@cipa@on & engagement

Company generated content

Community moderator program


Customer Education & Community Team

Customer Training

Community

Documenta@on


Self-sufficiency ratio

# content views:# of support @ckets


Marketo “Marketo isn’t just software. The minute you become a Marketo customer you join the Marketing Nation - a talented network of over 50,000 marketers and technology experts. Our community is a one-stop shop for our customers to get the information they need to become better marketers and connect with each other. The Community also gives our customers a voice that helps shape our products and features.”

Liz Courter Senior Customer Community Manager Marketo is a customer engagement platform you’ll never outgrow


Marketo Community

§ Help answer one another’s questions

§ Share ideas and inspiration

§ Showcase their marketing & product skills

§ Build their careers and find jobs

§ Talk with other marketers

§ Find the information they need

§ Get real-time support

The Central Hub for Marketing Nation Members


community.marketo.com


Community Evolution


What’s Next?

§ Watch where they continue to take and grow their user experience

§ Currently investigating best in breed solutions to streamline internal efficiency and provide an exceptional user experience

§ Considering federated search across best of breed solutions


Salesforce Community



EMC Communities



EMC Docs & Community


Splunk Community


What we covered

§ ONE EXPERIENCE –  Business Goals –  Content Goals &

Integration –  User Engagement –  Community Showcase

to Spark Ideas

§ ONE TEAM –  Journey –  Story –  Experience


Thank You