VMware Case Study

VMware develops software that creates and manages virtual machines. They have been a Jive Software customer for over two years. Stephen Chew, Senior Manager, VMware E-services, has been managing their online community since it's inception. We recently had a conversation with him in order to share what he's learned.

Stephen, how and why did VMware decide to launch its community?

We had two objectives: to tap into the enthusiasm our customers have for our products and to complement our live phone support. VMware has a very passionate customer-base. We wanted to give them a place they could easily give us feedback and that had very valuable tools so that they had a powerful way to participate and evangelize. We also wanted to make it easy for them to find the exact answers they were looking for.

A year later, we've grown from 10,000 registered users to over 100,000. Most recently, we've deployed invite-only forums and have seen a 50% lift in responses to postings. — Stephen Chew, Senior Manager e-Services

Did your team know how you would measure success?

Initially, we approached it in an analogous way to our call-center. We looked at the basics like new and registered users, number of posts and replies as well as open/closed questions. From there, we implemented the reward system, which helped us track participation at a more granular level. Now we get stats on answers found who our most active users are. Through views data, we can measure participation even if they aren't posting.

How much has your community grown since you first launched Jive Forums?

Well, there have been a number of acceleration points. We launched our forums in early 2003 and ignored them. The participation was minimal and growth was very slow. Towards the end of 2004, we rolled out the single sign-on and rewards system. A quarter later, our registered users tripled and it's continued on that pace. Now, a year later, we've grown from 10,000 registered users to over 100,000. Most recently, we've deployed invite-only forums and have seen a 50% lift in responses to postings.

Can you think of any specific features that have made a big impact?

I guess I'd answer that in terms of both users and administrators. For users, I'd have to say three most important features have been the identification and recognition of special members, having intuitive navigation and powerful thread management. The most important administrative features, no question, have been multi-level security, easy account management, the ability to highlight messages and great stats.

Any surprises, maybe things you didn't expect?

Absolutely. We didn't expect our community to be as concerned with status. Some of them are so engaged in earning higher status by helping others that we consider them a virtual extension of our support team. One person earned such a high status we actually had to create a status tier just to accommodate him. In fact, the deep level of engagement has even called for us to create a totally new (highest) tier. Also, we quickly identified the difference between moderators and facilitators.

Can you explain that?

Think of a moderator like a traffic cop. Ours spends no more than 4-5 hours a week on the community. They know the policies and procedures. They're reading posts and have a highly visible presence in the community. Moderators don't need to be experts on the topics or discussions, they just need tools to ensure that everyone is in-bounds. Facilitators, on the other hand, are like DJs. Their role is to keep the party going. They don't need special privledges but need to be forum topic experts and let people know that the forums are a place to get answers. Initially, we started enlisting employees as facilitators and have now grown to have a good mix of non-employee facilitators too.

What advice would you give a company implementing an online support community?

I'd summarize our experience to three main factors. First, you need enabling technology, like Jive Software that can give the users a platform to effectively dialogue and administrators tools to manage it. Second is pervasive marketing. It's not a single big campaign that will raise awareness. It's understanding your audience and consistently marketing to that audience in every medium that makes sense like pointers on your portal pages and links from all your email signatures. Finally, formalized moderation and facilitation. As mentioned before, moderators keep the place safe and facilitators keep it exciting. This is the difference between having a cup of coffee from the convenience store or the complete Starbucks experience.