- Client Feedback
Our forums have become an invaluable support channel for us, the tight integration of our Lithium community and RightNow CRM system makes for a much better overall experience for our customers.
- Jennifer Crawford
Director, Customer Service
Management & Moderation
Today, most people understand that communities require management to be successful. What does it mean to manage a community? We think it consists of three elements.
- Direction: Define community missions and goals for both company and users.
- Management: Plan community elements and activities to achieve those goals.
- Moderation. Deploy those elements and activities and manage them on a day-to-day basis.
Many Lithium customers perform all those elements internally and do it very successfully. Others lack the internal skills or resources to manage and moderate, and turn to Lithium to provide those services. Others want to develop those capabilities internally, but engage our help in the early months or years of a community to help their internal staff learn. Whatever approach you choose, we are here to here to help. Some of the tasks our moderators typically perform include:
- Creating a positive atmosphere and model desired behaviors through interactions on the boards and one-on-one interaction with members.
- Greeting new members; develop relationships with regular contributors; acknowledge members as they move up ranks; develop VIP or other recognition programs.
- Reviewing posts for compliance with guidelines; resolve issues using predefined protocols; escalate issues when required by client policy.
- Coordinating helpful activities by active users; develop formal volunteer program to better leverage the efforts of active users.
- Suggesting topics, seed discussion, and run events, contests, promotions and other programs to keep members interested and engaged.
- Assisting novices and respond to member suggestions and requests; help client administrator and any in-house moderation staff; make recommendations to client for ways to continuously improve the community.
- Preparing a weekly report with quantitative and qualitative data to share what's happening in the community with interested groups inside the company.
