Social Support
Maturity
with
August 22, 2012

today’s speakers
Archana Shrotriya Emilie Kopp Joe Cothrel
AE Web Support Social Business Programs Chief Community Officer
National Instruments National Instruments Lithium
Twitter hashtag: #lithcast

we are lithium
delivering social customer
experiences for the world’s
most iconic brands

what is social support?
Social support is the use of social
channels—forums, blogs, and social
networks—to supplement or replace
traditional customer service and
support channels.

challenges in service and support
Sources: Accenture, Lithium customers, Jupiter Research

WAVE 1 WAVE 2 WAVE 3
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challenges of mature efforts
 Performance measurement and improvement
 Increasing adoption
 Integration of social and non-social channels
 Improving customer choice of channel
 Leveraging channels for quality improvement

ni.com

National Instruments—Our Commitment
• We equip engineers and scientists with tools that
accelerate productivity, innovation, and discovery.
ni.com 9

National Instruments—Our Stability
Long-Term Track Record of Growth and Profitability
• Non-GAAP Revenue: $262 M in Q1 2012
• Global Operations: Approximately 6,300
employees; operations in more than 40
countries
Non-GAAP Revenue* in Millions
• Broad customer base: More than 35,000
companies served annually
• Diversity: No industry >15% of revenue
• Culture: Ranked among top 25 companies
to work for worldwide by the Great Places
to Work Institute
• Strong Cash Position: Cash and short-
term investments of $377M as of March 31,
2012
*A reconciliation of GAAP to non-GAAP results is available at investor.ni.com
ni.com 10

National Instruments—What We Do
Graphical system design combines graphical
programming software with modular hardware,
leveraging the latest technologies.
Low-Cost Modular Measurement Productive Software Highly Integrated
and Control Hardware Development Tools Systems Platforms
ni.com 11

From Kindergarten to Rocket Science
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Social Business Evolution
Idea
Listserv 1991 Exchange
2009
Blogs 2005
Support Forums1999 Twitter, FB,
Re-launched in 2004 Mobile 2011
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YouTube 2007

2004 Goals of NI Discussion Forums
- Provide a online public forum where customers can
gather to troubleshoot and solve their NI product
problems
- Build a worldwide community where users can share
knowledge and develop a lasting relationship.
- Improve searchability of information in the public forum.
- Promote loyalty amongst the Enthusiast community.
- Integrate public forums with other content databases that
exist on the site to provide more complete solutions to
our customers.
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ni.com/forums
Support Forums
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Support Forums Key Features ni.com/forums
• Available in Eight Languages
• Japanese, Chinese (Simplified), Chinese (Traditional), Spanish, Italian, Turkish,
Portuguese and Arabic
• Advanced Personalization Options
• User configured emoticon style, signature, font size, subscription preferences,
board layout, time zone, etc.
• Backend Support Integration
• Applications Engineering in the appropriate worldwide branch is notified for
each message posted based on customer location.
• Integrated with NI Authentication and Service Request Management
• Users login with their existing NI authentication and can post questions Service
creation system.
• Detailed Reporting Functionality
• Granular reporting to trend forum traffic better to monitor success.
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ni.com/forums
User Engagement
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ni.com/forums
Estimated Savings
Direct & Indirect
Deflections
$7.5M/year Savings
Time
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ni.com/forums
Rewards and Reputation
Enthusiasts, Proven Zealots
5 Knights of NI!
Favorite hat to wear at NIWeek
Princess
Shrubbery from NI
Teddy
Sword
Bear
(Avatar)
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Social Business Impact Areas
- Support: Ensure Customer Success
- R&D: Co-Innovation: Obtain Product Feedback and Enable
Development
- Marketing: Increase Loyalty and Advocacy, Increase
Brand Awareness and Manage Reputation
- Sales: Drive and Enable New/Repeat Business
- Internal: Enhance global employee collaboration and
nurture NI culture
ni.com 20

Co-Innovation Plan
- Make it easy for NI Customers to share discuss and vote
on new features
- Gather feedback from lead users as we enter new markets
- Encourage customers to share their feedback in a public
idea forum
- Integrate these ideas into traditional marketing efforts
- Launch customer driven product enhancements at NI-
Week, our annual user conference and trade show.
ni.com 21

ni.com/ideas
Idea Exchange
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ni.com/ideas
Co-Innovation
Idea Facts:
2,700 ideas submitted(initial goal
500)
more than 80,000 votes
15,500 comments on ideas
ni.com 23

12 Enhancements ni.com/ideas
From the LabVIEW Idea Exchange in the 2012 Release
• Subdiagram Labels • Conditionally writing values to
loop output tunnels
• Enumerated dialog
enhancements • Concatenate indexing
• Removing selected broken wires • Right-click menu for multiple
items
• Icon Editor API
• Long file path truncation
• Contextual Help for Data
Coercion • Separate label locations for
controls and indicators
• Event structure in Base version
• String editing dialog box
ni.com
Accelerate your productivity 24

Recognition in White Papers
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Recognition in User Manuals
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ni.com/ideas
R&D Welcomes Customer Ideas
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2013 Goals of ni.com Community/Forums
• Provide Technical Support and Troubleshooting
• Enable peer-driven technical solutions
• Build Loyalty and Engagement
• Enable customer collaboration with other experts
• Elevate customer voice within NI
• Encourage user contribution
• Recognize advocates & power users
• Develop User Product Proficiency
• Deliver online content to enhance “Getting Started” experience
• Accelerate aptitude and innovation through collaboration
• Drive customers from product to online content
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The more active the customer is with NI community,
the more satisfied and loyal they are with NI
Extrem
ely
Satisfie
d
/ Likely
Not at
all
Satisfi
ed /
Likely
Source: US/CA Q2 2011 Customer Loyalty Survey
Q. How frequently do you visit the NI Community or forums to read content, share code, and so on? (Single select)
Q. Now, considering everything about National Instruments in terms of the available product information, sales representatives, ordering process,
products, and support/services, how would you rate your overall satisfaction with National Instruments? Q. How likely you are to do the following?
ni.com 29

2008 Supporting Category Winner: Nerd
Network: Building an Online Community for
Developers
2010 Energizing Category Finalist: Energizing
Engineers at NIWeek
2010 Embracing Category Winner: Embracing
our Customers for Software Development
NEW: 2013 Harvard Business School
Case: National Instruments LabVIEW
Community: Social Business for a B-to-B
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Future Investments
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Customer support on the social web
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NI Social Listening Process
Social Media Monitoring Tool “Actionable Conversations” Employee
Finds all social mentions of NI global brands Checklist Listening
and products (Social Media Coordinator) Network
supplements
Will taking action help us… monitoring tool
• Increase brand awareness
• Manage brand reputation
Sanity check: Who is it? • Increase loyalty/advocacy
- Historical Relationship • Ensure customer success
- Influencer
- Attention seeker (@- • Obtain product feedback
mention, direct message) • Drive and enable new and
repeat business
Posts “Actionable Conversations” to internal employee network
- Coordinator responds immediately or alerts internal experts of relevant, new posting
- Employees can collaborate on most valuable response
- Member of “core team” or topic expert responds on original platform and links to valuable
content
- Conversation is tracked and recorded
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Notion of service anywhere, anytime?
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NI’s key challenges and focus areas moving forward
• Align with business objectives and stakeholders
• Collaboration across NI Social Media, Web Support Operations
and Applications Engineering Teams
• Avoid creating silos (Facebook vs. Twitter vs. NI Forums)
• Leverage our existing processes and existing community
ni.com 35

Questions?
ni.com 36

today’s speakers
Archana Shrotriya Emilie Kopp Joe Cothrel
AE Web Support Social Business Programs Chief Community Officer
National Instruments National Instruments Lithium
Twitter hashtag: #lithcast