Archive for Support

2011 Online Support Rankings | Why the biggest aren’t always the best

By Marty Gruhn · Comments (0)
Monday, October 17th, 2011

So much for conventional wisdom.

For the most part, I’d rather have a root canal than use most support Websites.

Search for information and you end up with a list of a bazillion documents with truncated descriptions that read like Sanskrit.

Want to take a different path? Try ferreting your product out of a laundry list of every product the company ever made.

Or try the “follow our logical links” scenario—where you end up drilling to China.

At the end of all of this wonderfulness is the real insult. Support content that either requires an engineering degree to understand—or a wad of general purpose instructions that dance around the problem and miss the issue by a country mile. Read More→

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Categories : POV (point of view), Support
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When support worlds collide. How to screw up a new market gambit

By Marty Gruhn · Comments (1)
Thursday, August 19th, 2010

Happy campers now, unhappy campers laterCompanies eying new markets should avoid “Marie Antoinette” and “Frankenstein” support strategies. Here’s why.

You can tell a lot about a company’s prime customers by its Website—and even more by how customers fresh from acquisitions and market gambits get lost in the shuffle.

Examine companies like Dell, that has moved from its consumer roots into enterprise markets. Or, IBM’s, CA’s and Cisco’s endeavors to translate historical successes in the enterprise realm into SMB markets. And then there is Oracle’s attempt to execute simultaneous vertical and horizontal market strategies by lashing together its software applications with Sun’s hardware and storage products. There are plenty of examples.

If you think the “tell” of these (and other) companies’ successes or failures are found in their online marketing content, you would be looking in the wrong direction. In reality, the “tell” is found in their support and training zones.

Before support and training Web teams even entertain the hope for a successful market move, they must take these two approaches off the table:  Read More→

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Categories : Branding, Marketing, POV (point of view), Strategy, Support
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Consumer support — a horse of a different color

By Marty Gruhn · Comments (0)
Friday, July 2nd, 2010

You’d think that all support sites are created equal. If so, you’d be wrong.

Turns out that support sites that target home and home office customers are very different than those that target large enterprises. Different features, architectures, strengths, and challenges. In fact, they are horses of a completely different color.

One would think that this observation would be a no brainer. Turns out, it’s a challenge for a lot of companies — especially major enterprise players that are wading into the consumer markets, including Cisco.com and CA.com. But, well-known consumer stalwarts, such as Dell.com and HP.com, haven’t broken the technical support code either. Simple fact, “one-size-fits-all” support thinking will get you into plenty of trouble.

We’re putting the finishing touches on a new best practice case study report that identifies the best of the best in home and home office markets. Companies like Apple.com and Adobe.com, plus outstanding support zones at Dell Home & Home Office, HP Home & Home Office, Symantec Norton, McAfee Home & Home Office, and Cisco Home Networking.

Kenna will be filling you in on some of the key details from her drive across the IT Web and her deep dives into these great sites. She tells me that the devil’s in the tricky details. Stay tuned.

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Categories : Search, Support
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You only get one chance to make a bad impression.

By Kenna Dian · Comments (3)
Wednesday, May 19th, 2010

Making a Bad Impression | Support SitesWhy do so many companies start with their support site?

Your support site is supposed to be the fount of knowledge for your customers—and a way to prove your excellence to prospects engaged in the buying process. It’s there to solve your customer’s problems. Speed them the information they need. Show them how to use your product. Make all of the wrongs with your product right.

Since happy customers are the cornerstone of successful companies, it would make sense that support sites would be laser focused on sending all of the right messages – right? Wrong. Most are actually sending plenty of wrong messages – and what they are really saying is startling. Read More→

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Categories : Marketing, Support
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Flash mobs with a purpose

By Marty Gruhn · Comments (1)
Monday, May 3rd, 2010

Dell’s Storm Sessions aren’t getting much traction, but you shouldn’t count them out

I can remember when flash mobs were a hot topic in the media; essentially a group of people with more time on their hands than good sense. I figured this phenomenon would go the way of the mosh pit.

Who knew that Dell.com would try and harness it as a form of online community behavior?

Here, I’m talking about Dell.com’s Storm Sessions which nestle within its Idea Storm community. In simple terms, this is the place where Dell throws out an idea or question for community members, starts the clock, and lets community members throw in their opinions.

Gabfests can be open for a month or a few days. Once the clock has run out, the session is closed, Dell reviews the comments, and shares how/when Dell will act on the information.

I’ve been watching Storm Sessions for about six months to see if this idea would gain any traction within Dell’s community ecosystem and gauge the kinds of issues and questions Dell would pose. Read More→

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Categories : Communities, POV (point of view), Social Media & Social Networks, Support
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Why Tech?

By Marty Gruhn · Comments (1)
Saturday, March 6th, 2010

A lot of people ask me why we focus on technology sites. Their reasoning is simple. There’s plenty of other interesting Websites out there with cooler designs and more doodads.

They’re probably right.

On the other hand, good (and even great) IT industry Websites have something to teach everyone.

They market and sell a complex range of products and software – plus the services that make them work. HP.com, for example, has over 10,000 SKUs. A small tech site can have upwards of 10,000 pages under management.

They reach and woo huge, diverse and demanding audiences.  Consumers who are shopping. CIO’s who are bonding. Project managers who are planning. Tech heads who are developing. Investors and journalists who influence the market’s pace. These sites will easily serve over 14 million visitors a month. When you have that many people knocking on your door, there’s not much time to make mistakes.

And that’s just for starters. Once the deal is done, tech sites must deliver mountains of product support information to cranky users 24/7. Meanwhile, behind the scenes, entitled extranets maintain relationships with huge global customers, and distributors and partners selling the company’s wares.

All things considered, tech sites have more moving parts and business strategies than anyone else on the Web. Amazon.com might have “fall off a log” e-commerce, but it doesn’t have to fix my egg cooker when the cord falls out.  My banking site does a great job of displaying my accounts in real time and letting me pay the bills, but it doesn’t have to deliver a gazillion software downloads a day, or contend with millions of developers who are fiddling with the product.

That’s why we focus on technology sites — and why you should too.

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Categories : POV (point of view), Strategy
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Online Communities: Fasten Your Seat Belts

By Marty Gruhn · Comments (3)
Monday, December 14th, 2009

Web 2.0 and 3.0 can and will deliver real value to site operators and their visitors and prospects in 2010. Communities? Not so much.

Recently, I presented how we’re defining Web 2.0, Web 3.0 and communities to several clients, including our POV on their futures in 2010. It’s interesting that these three areas are finally moving beyond all the hype and bright and shiny objects that blinded most Web teams to their real potential last year.

Web 2.0 and 3.0 are finally coalescing into two ends of an important spectrum. Web 2.0 is all about content and information – providing these assets in new forms that make them easier for visitors to digest, use and share. Web 3.0 is actually about changing the interface and how users access these new generations of content. Simply put, it’s about creating adaptive sites that intuit or know why the visitor is there.

From my perspective, Web 2.0 and 3.0 can and will deliver real value to site operators and the visitors and prospects they are trying to woo and win in 2010. Communities? Not so much.

In fact, our in-depth evaluations show that most communities represent a high risk business strategy for companies. Why? Let me count the ways. Read More→

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Categories : Communities, Social Media & Social Networks, Strategy, Web 2.0
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Reseller sites give Dell.com a run for its (e-selling) money

By Nicole Wallens · Comments (0)
Saturday, May 17th, 2008

Ever since we made the decision to add reseller sites to our eBusiness Index roster for 2008, I’ve been curious to see how they would perform against some of the IT industry’s selling powerhouses, including HP.com, Dell.com, and IBM.com. I wasn’t curious about their competitive performance, per se. Reseller sites are significantly smaller than their enterprise-class counterparts, even though they sell many of the same products. That automatically means their overall rankings will be lower. What I was curious about is how well these reseller sites would stack up based on their usability.

Insight.com and Newegg.com both receive scores that place them in a league with IT industry leaders -- and well ahead of one of their major partners -- HP.com

Insight.com and Newegg.com both receive scores that place them in a league with IT industry leaders — and well ahead of one of their major partners — HP.

When I rolled up the first quarter 2008 usability numbers this week, a couple of interesting facts jumped out. First, Newegg.com’s product marketing score is nearly 71%, which puts it on par with the eBusiness Index average (71.38%) — and places it in close proximity to enterprise systems heavyweights in the effectiveness rankings. Second, and more important, all three reseller sites — Newegg.com, CDW.com, and Insight.com — earn e-selling-related usability scores that are well above the eBusiness Index average, and actually rival those of the ultimate online channel — Dell.com.

Admittedly, these are two bright spots in an otherwise checkered usability landscape for these companies.  Read More→

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Categories : eSelling
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Support forums | Why silence speaks louder than words

By Kenna Dian · Comments (0)
Monday, May 12th, 2008

Today I reviewed the most recent siteIQ Enterprise Software evaluations and was surprised to see that CA.com didn’t receive a score for online support forums. Since virtually every IT Website we track on the siteIQ eBusiness Index that delivers public online support resources includes a publicly available online support forum, this omission seemed particularly odd. Intrigued, I had to find out the reason behind what appeared to be a glaring oversight.

What I found is that CA.com’s new support site does, indeed, have online support forums, and they are fairly well marked. The reason it didn’t receive a score from our evaluators was because customers must provide their email and a password not only participate in CA.com’s support forums (which is SOP for all forums) — but to view them as well. This, of course, leads one (or at least me) to ponder why a company would hide its forums behind the proverbial firewall when the industry convention is to allow visitors to freely peruse support forum entries.

One potential reason is obvious. Read More→

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Categories : Support
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Is your support zone costing you customers?

By Marty Gruhn · Comments (1)
Tuesday, April 15th, 2008

Most IT vendors operate their online support zones as cost avoidance vehicles. Here, the theory is simple. If the company can get customers to find their own answers online, they can eliminate expensive support calls. In the companies we track at siteIQ, that can translate into boatloads of money.

This tale of woe has an important message that IT vendors should not miss. I did not want a new printer. I wanted my current printer to work.

With this as the impetus, it’s no wonder that most support zones in the IT business range from inadequate to inept to a complete mess. Most vendors think that providing second-rate online support saves them money. What they don’t realize is that it is just as likely to drive otherwise loyal customers to a competitive brand.

To see how, consider a recent experience here at siteIQ. Read More→

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Categories : Support
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