About a year and a half ago, not long after iRobot had released its newest Roomba vacuum cleaner, the 570, a video appeared on YouTube with a man from Canada pronouncing at the start: 'The purpose of this video is to show a fault in the new Roomba robotic vacuum cleaner.'
It was just the sort of problem and opportunity Web 2.0 technologies and social networks present for companies today. The man in the video is publicly demonstrating a fault with iRobot's latest product. But he also opens up the robot and fixes it, showing others how to correct the problem in an online video. It's a problem for marketing, which now has to deal with a branding issue for its new product, but it's an opportunity for customer service -- people watching the YouTube clip may tackle the problem themselves with no need for a costly call into the contact center.
iRobot is no neophyte when it comes to social networks. Two years ago, it launched its own online community where customers can share tips, tricks, stories and where to get deals on iRobot products. A small customer-service team oversees the online community with significant input from marketing and the website team, according to Maryellen Abreu, director of global customer service with the Bedford, Mass.-based company.
Despite their rapid rise and evolution, social networks or Web 2.0 technologies are still very new to most organizations, which are grappling with how to incorporate them into their business. Even iRobot, which has a formal structure for the monitoring and oversight of its own online communities, has different parts of the business monitoring the oversight of the wider Internet. Abreu 'owns' the communities; but marketing, Abreu and a contracted PR firm keep an eye on the blogoshpere.
'It's kind of ad hoc right now,' she said.
Online communities are providing real returns for companies willing to invest, but there are still plenty of challenges -- and plenty of hype -- around them, according to John Ragsdale, research director with the Service and Support Professionals Association (SSPA).
'Among SSPA members, I would say it's pretty evenly divided with marketing versus support,' he said. 'I don't know how you define ownership, but I do think marketing has a critical role. Companies that launch an online community without some ownership from marketing are setting themselves up for failure.'
Who runs it all is just one of the tough questions
Building an online community presents a number of challenges beyond ownership. Given the state of the economy, the case for ROI is a vague one, Ragsdale argues in a recent research note. That is not helped by some of the market's software and service vendors overstating their case with claims that don't add up in the real world. For example, messages in an online community do not equal a one-to-one reduction in calls into customer support.
'There's a big misunderstanding between demand for support and demand for assisted support,' Ragsdale said. 'People go to forums to learn about products, to see what people are talking about, as training -- for a lot of different reasons. You can't assume that because they went to your forum, they're not going to pick up the phone and call you.'