Should You Crowdsource Customer Service

Let’s get the jargon out of the way. Crowdsourcing is a term that’s used to describe the process or soliciting the mass or your own network of friends, followers, fans, customers, prospects and so on, to accomplish a task, project or maybe just answer your questions. So what does it mean to crowdsource your customer support?

Great examples of this is how opensource software have formed communities where everyone tries to help each other out. Technically, this is not something brand new, but the tools can be. Traditionally, forums have been the tool of choice. But these days, you have great tools like Get Satisfaction and UserVoice.

These are very well built tools that allow users to post their questions, let other users to chirp in to say “me too” or answer questions. As a business, you can set up your company and use it like your official help desk. It is kind of like a merge between a forum, a personal Yahoo Answers system and a help desk.

The pros:

• You don’t have to maintain the software
• You get the ability to tap into the knowledge of the masses – since there’s already a user base there, if they are familiar with your product, others can answer your customer support issues for you, alleviating your work burden
• You get to use a pretty cool and well built piece of software that would cost you to build or set up on your own and you get started quickly
• You get to establish a professional support system where you can manage requests and provide support in an orderly and organized method
• You get to see what the people actually think and feel, granted, you already see this using your own system but user sentiment and feedback is better captured by these systems which means you can get a better overview or what people are actually saying.

The cons:

• If you’re using the free option, you do not get to moderate any posts made by others. This is good and bad. Good in the sense that it encourages transparency but bad in a sense because even if you upgrade and get moderation turned on, you have to provide a reason. To me, it’s like having a ‘boss’ over your shoulder – not exactly my preference.
• It can get pricey. Get Satisfaction starts at $99/month. UserVoice does have a much more affordable starting point at $19/month but if your system is pretty busy, you may find yourself hitting the limit pretty quickly.
• You can lose your branding. Branding options only come with paid accounts and for that, refer to con #2. Your customers are directed to a site where they can quickly get distracted with other things. On your own system, you can better control what you present.

What’s the verdict?

I’m not entirely sure. I think it is great if you don’t already have a system in place but want to setup something where you can organize and respond to people effectively. But if you already have a system, then you fragment your support by also setting up on these sites. While I love the idea of crowdsourcing, it is very enticing to me, including the transparency, I’m not sure I like having someone looking over my shoulder when it comes to support issues.

Also, crowdsourcing works a lot better if you actually do have a big following and user base. For smaller companies with limited exposure and user base, at the end of the day, you or your staff will still end up providing the bulk of the support. I’ve decided not to take advantage at this time.

Lynette enjoys discovering new ways to use technology or new technologies to use in a business and in turn help her clients apply them. You can find also Lynette at her blog, Twitter and Facebook

If you liked this article, you might also enjoy:

1. The A B C’s of Customer Service – How to Keep Your Customers and Gain New Ones
2. Discussion about promotional strategies, websites and customer service
3. Making Client Appointment Scheduling Painless