Peer-to-Peer Support and its Benefits

Chapter five of Delivering Effective Social Customer Service talks about peer-to-peer support. Carolyn Blunt and Martin Hill-Wilson discuss how communities work and the benefits of these communities. These online communities have been used for over 20 years. Some communities have matured into a main point for engagement. Team members receive valuable insight from communities.


Blunt and Hill-Wilson also talk about the 90/9/1 rule. These three numbers show the three main forms of participating in an online community. 90 percent of the users are considered lurkers. While these people read and observe, they do not contribute to the community. Nine percent of users occasionally contribute. Finally, one percent of users participate frequently. This one percent is responsible for most of the content in a community.


I was very surprised to learn about the 90/9/1 rule. There are online communities, such as forums, that would consider me to be a lurker. On the other hand, the one percent that posts most of the content was a shock. However, there are times where these people may post just to get attention and turns a conversation into an argument.


With online communities, there are bound to be benefits. Michael Maoz, a Gartner distinguished analyst vice president, observed four communities in action for one year. He found that on average, over 40 percent of customers resolve their issues in the community. This resulted in a 15 percent reduction of service cases. Finally, the average return on investment was 100 percent within 15 months. 



Maoz's findings did not really surprise me. When people can solve their issues in the community, it saves them time and they do not have to wait for a professional to help them. It is common for people to share questions in an online community, where others who have experienced the same thing can give their input.

Social Customer Service Ecosystem

Chapter three of Delivering Effective Social Customer Service talks about the ecosystem for social customer service. It is important to have a broad ecosystem that includes more than just social networking sites. An ecosystem causes people to think in a broad sense. Carolyn Blunt and Martin Hill-Wilson talk about the benefits of visualizing an ecosystem. It provides companies with an easier way to determine demand for customer service.


Blunt and Hill-Wilson discuss a way to visualize this ecosystem. Social listening is at the center, while corporate blogs, peer support and ecommerce reviews are the next level. The third outermost level includes social networking sites. Finally, the final level includes self-help forums, online communities, expert sites, review sites and personal blogs. The levels closer to social listening have a stronger influencing ability than the levels closer to the outside of the ecosystem.


Blunt and Hill-Wilson also stress the importance of a customer community as part of the social customer strategy. It is a way to build integration and interaction. Self-help forums are one way to help create a customer community. A customer can search the forum and see if another customer has experienced the same problem. If so, other customers may have provided feedback on how to solve the problem. In addition, the company can also assist the customer. It can be quicker to figure out the solution to a problem by searching the forum than sending an email to the company.


I believe it is important to have a visualization of an ecosystem. It shows how some sources can influence others easily, while it is harder for other sources to influence people. I agree with the idea of including more than just social networking sites in the ecosystem. Social networking sites do not have the strongest ability to influence others, which surprised me. By including more sources, there are more opinions and more talk about your company, which is better than no talk.