Increasing customer engagement using online community

98 Pages·2007·9.65 MB·English

Increasing customer engagement using
online community
Alper C¸u˘gun (1026917)
Delft, University of Technology
Masters Programme Media and Knowledge Engineering
March 20, 2007
Creative Commons Attribution 2.5
' Alper C¸u˘gun 2007

Delft,UniversityofTechnology
MastersProgramme MediaandKnowledgeEngineering
Thesis
Date 2007/3/13
Author AlperC¸ug˘un(#1026917)
GraduationCommittee
• Prof. Dr. MarkNeerincx
• Dr.ir. CharlesvanderMast
• Dr. KeesvanderMeer
• Drs. AmandaDirkse(TOPdesk)
Title Increasingcustomerengagementusingonlinecommunity
Abstract
This paper explores the effect that social software has on the relation
betweenaB2Bcompanyanditscustomers. Toperformthisresearchacom-
munityapplicationisdevelopedtocatertotheneedsofthecompanyandits
customers. Thisapplicationislaunchedandpresentedasanadditionaloffer-
inginthecompany’scommunicationportfoliotoservicecustomers. Usage
onthisapplicationismonitoredandmeasurementsbeforeandafterdeploy-
mentleadtopreliminaryoutcomes. Resultsshowhighlycontentcustomers
who see the community as an interesting addition and employees who see
thepotentialofthecommunicationsitenablesbutareabitreluctant. Further
investmentto garneradoption andgrowmindshare willhave toshow ifthe
communityissustainable.
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Contents
1 Introduction 9
1.1 ThesisOutline . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
2 TOPdesk 11
2.1 Company . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
2.1.1 History . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
2.1.2 Organization . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
2.1.3 Product . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
2.2 Customers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
3 Research 14
3.1 Community . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
3.1.1 Definition . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
3.1.2 Participation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
3.1.3 Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
3.2 BusinessValue . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
4 ProblemAnalysis 20
4.1 ProblemStatement . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20
4.2 Question . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20
4.2.1 Hypothesis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21
4.3 Goal . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21
4.4 Process . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21
4.4.1 Communication . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21
4.4.2 Analysis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22
4.4.3 Implementation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22
4.4.4 Evaluation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23
5 Methodology 24
5.1 Analysis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24
5.1.1 Survey . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26
5.2 Implementation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26
5.2.1 UserTesting . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26
5.3 Evaluation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27
5.3.1 Survey . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27
5.3.2 Statistics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27
6 Requirements 29
6.1 Company . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29
6.1.1 GroupDiscussions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29
6.1.2 EmployeeSurvey . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36
6.2 Customers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 44
6.2.1 Goal . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 44
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6.2.2 Interview . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 44
6.3 Non-functionalrequirements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 46
6.3.1 EaseofUse . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 46
6.3.2 Speed . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 46
6.3.3 Confidentiality . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 46
7 Design 48
7.1 FunctionalSpecifications . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 48
7.1.1 TaskAnalysis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 48
7.2 VisualDesign . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51
8 Implementation 53
8.1 TechnicalAnalysis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 53
8.2 Prototype . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 55
8.2.1 Scope . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 55
8.2.2 Evaluation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 55
8.3 Product . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 56
8.3.1 Launch . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 56
8.3.2 Evolution . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 58
8.3.3 Postlaunch . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 58
9 Evaluation 59
9.1 Adoption . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 59
9.1.1 Metrics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 59
9.1.2 Results . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 60
9.1.3 Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 60
9.2 Users . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 60
9.2.1 Customers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 61
9.2.2 EmployeeSurvey . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 66
9.2.3 Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 76
10 Conclusion 79
10.1 Results. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 79
10.2 Discussion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 80
10.2.1 SoftFactors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 80
10.2.2 Time . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 80
10.3 Recommendations. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 81
10.3.1 Runtime . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 81
10.3.2 Standardsoftware. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 81
10.3.3 Responsibilities . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 81
A InternalSurvey 87
B FinalSystem 89
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C InternalSurveyEvaluation 92
D PrototypeSurvey 94
E CommunitySurvey 96
4
List of Figures
1 Benefitsofcommunitiesofpracticefororganizationalperformance 14
2 Communityinexistingcommunicationschannels . . . . . . . . . 18
3 ThegeneralHuman-ComputerInteractiondesignprocess . . . . 24
4 Illustrationoftheflowoftheproject . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25
5 Employeesurveyresultsoncustomerimportance. . . . . . . . . 39
6 Employeesurveyresultsoncustomerusage. . . . . . . . . . . . 39
7 Employeesurveyresultsoncustomercommunication. . . . . . . 40
8 Employeesurveyresultsoncustomersatisfaction. . . . . . . . . 42
9 Employeesurveyresultsoncommunityparticipation. . . . . . . 43
10 Preliminarysitemapofthesite . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 49
11 MainpageoftheExtranetsystemasusedbyTOPdesk. . . . . . . 52
12 Main page of the TOPdesk Community which shows a resem-
blancetotheExtranetinfigure11. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 53
13 Picturesfromthecommunitylaunchevent. . . . . . . . . . . . . 57
14 CustomerevaluationsurveyresultsonsatisfactionwithTOPdesk. 62
15 Customer evaluation survey results on satisfaction with TOPdesk
Community. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 63
16 CustomerevaluationsurveyresultsoncontactwithTOPdesk. . . 63
17 Customerevaluationsurveyresultsoninformationderived. . . . 64
18 Customerevaluationsurveyresultsonsharedknowledge. . . . . 64
19 Customerevaluationsurveyresultsonneedtocontactotherusers. 65
20 Customerevaluationsurveyresultsonderivedsupport. . . . . . . 65
21 Customerevaluationsurveyresultsonthecontributiontotheirview
ofTOPdesk. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 66
22 Employeeevaluationsurveyresultsoncustomerimportance. . . . 67
23 Employeeevaluationsurveyresultsoncustomerusage. . . . . . . 69
24 Employeeevaluationsurveyresultsoncustomercommunication. 70
25 Employeeevaluationsurveyresultsoncustomersatisfaction. . . . 71
26 Employeeevaluationsurveyresultsoncommunityparticipation. . 72
27 Employee evaluation survey results on community participation
(additionalquestions). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 73
28 Employeeevaluationsurveyresultsoncommunityusefulness. . . 74
29 Theresultsinbothemployeessurveysoncustomerimportance. . 75
30 DifferencebetweenemployeesurveysoncustomerusageofTOPdesk. 77
31 Differencebetweensurveyoncustomercommunication. . . . . . 77
32 Differencebetweenemployeesurveysondesiretolearnmoreabout
customersatisfaction. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 83
33 Differencebetweenemployeesurveysoncommunityparticipation. 84
34 Screenshotofthemaincommunitypage. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 89
35 Screenshotofacommunitycategoryoverviewpage. . . . . . . . 90
36 Screenshotofacommunitypostpage. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 90
37 Screenshotofacommunitycommentform. . . . . . . . . . . . . 91
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38 Screenshotofacommunityuserpage. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 91
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List of Tables
1 Summarizedanswerstothefirstinternalsurveyamongemployees. 37
2 Summarized answers to the survey among customers on the com-
munity. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 62
3 Summarizedanswerstothesecondinternalsurveyamongemployees. 68
4 Questions the employees were asked during the internal question-
nairetoelicitrequirements. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 88
5 Questions the employees were asked during the second internal
questionnairetoevaluatetheeffectthesystemhashadonthem.. . 93
6 Questions asked to the customers from the focus group for the re-
viewoftheprototype. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 95
7 Questions asked to users of the TOPdesk Community during the
evaluation. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 96
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Preface
Areportlikethisdoesnotgetwrittenbyitself, norisitcreatedsolelybythetoils
andeffortsoftheauthorlistedonthecoversheet. Extendedthanksareinorderto
both of my supervisors, Amanda Dirkse at TOPdesk and Charles van der Mast at
Delft,UniversityofTechnologyfortheircontinuedguidanceandsupport.
When I set out on this journey I had of yet no idea where this project would
lead and how it would turn out. It has taken some time through various fields,
subjects, topics and concepts always in search of the best combination of things.
This project has been non standard in many ways, but I set out on it because I
believed in its necessity and I thought it was the best combination of my interests
incomputerscience,manmachineinteraction,communicationandbusiness.
Alistofthank yousisnevercompletebutstillvery necessary. Iwouldliketo
thankRoelSpilkerforcomingupwiththeideaforthisprojectinthefirstplace. I
wouldliketothankmyfellowteammembersfortheirputtingupwithmeandfor
showinginterestandenthousiasmattimeswhenIhadtroubleseeingit. Iespecially
wouldliketothankEelkeDekkerforhisvisuallycreativeworkonthelookandfeel
ofthecommunity.
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