Hotline-based customer support, where a helpful support agent dispenses support in real-time, is increasingly rare. While some customers or users lament what seems like the pending extinction of this support offering, others like the increasing array of options for self-help. In fact, many opt for self-help support channels because they are more accessible, convenient, low-cost or immediate. The motivation for offering crowd-based or self-service support can vary, from organizations that simply want to lower their costs to those that want to better serve their customers. Whatever the motivation, self-service support channels are seemingly on the rise, and the first (sometimes only) resort to get help. Demand Metric, in partnership with Vanilla Forums, set out to learn what the customer support landscape looks like and how effective crowd based, self-service support channels are working. To find out, these partners fielded an online survey, getting over 400 individuals and firms to click in to it. Those who reported that their organizations provide technical or product support to customers or prospects were encouraged to complete the study survey. The report shares the data and analysis from this survey providing insights into best practices for improving crowd based, self- service support.

2. 3
4
Introduction
Executive Summary
6
14
32
33
Support Operation Overview
Communities and the Support Process
Acknowledgements
Appendix: Survey Background
Table of Contents
Leveraging Support Data & Metrics21
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26 Demand, Investment and Strategic Importance
Analyst Bottom Line30
2016 State of Online Community for Customer Support – October 2016

3. INTRODUCTION
Hotline-based customer support, where a helpful support agent dispenses support in
real-time, is increasingly rare. While some customers or users lament what seems
like the pending extinction of this support offering, others like the increasing array of
options for self-help. In fact, many opt for self-help support channels because they are
more accessible, convenient, low-cost or immediate.
The motivation for offering crowd-based or self-service support can vary, from
organizations that simply want to lower their costs to those that want to better serve
their customers. Whatever the motivation, self-service support channels are
seemingly on the rise, and the first (sometimes only) resort to get help.
Demand Metric, in partnership with Vanilla Forums, set out to learn what the customer
support landscape looks like and how effective crowd based, self-service support
channels are working. To find out, these partners fielded an online survey, getting
over 400 individuals and firms to click in to it. Those who reported that their
organizations provide technical or product support to customers or prospects were
encouraged to complete the study survey. The report shares the data and analysis
from this survey providing insights into best practices for improving crowd based, self-
service support.
© 2016 Demand Metric Research Corporation. All Rights Reserved.
License our research to fuel your content marketing programs.
Contact us at info@demandmetric.com or +1 (866) 947-7744
32016 State of Online Community for Customer Support – October 2016

4. EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
This study’s participants were distributed between B2B, B2C and mixed B2B/B2C
organizations, most of which report revenue growth during the past fiscal year.
Almost three-fourths of the respondents have marketing, sales or support job titles.
The respondents come from a diverse set of industries, with one-third coming from
the technology hardware or software sector. Half come from companies with less than
$10 million in annual revenue, while 14 percent are with firms reporting revenues of
$500 million or more.
The analysis of this study’s data provides these key findings:
! Just six percent of study participants use a single channel to deliver support,
while over 60 percent use four or more support channels.
! Around-the-clock availability is the top incentive customers have to use self-
help support channels.
! Over three-fourths of the study participants are satisfied or very satisfied
with their support processes and resources.
! Almost two-thirds of study participants report that their support process
generates some level of revenue.
! Of the study’s participants that have an online community as part of the
support process, half report a moderate or significant contribution to
revenue. By comparison, just 39 percent of those that don’t have a
community report this same impact on revenue.
! Study participants that rate their community content as “Extremely valuable”
have a level of customer satisfaction with the support process that exceeds
90 percent.
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1
2016 State of Online Community for Customer Support – October 2016

5. ! Support communities are a factor in all stages of the customer journey, with
56 percent of participants reporting their community’s role is significant or
very significant in the Consideration phase.
! When a community is one of the support channels offered, the usefulness of
support data for gaining insights increases from 67 to 82 percent.
! Study participants with support communities track a broader spectrum of
metrics. Their average usage of metrics is 15 points higher than for
organizations without communities.
This report details the results and insights from the analysis of the study data. For
more detail on the survey participants, please refer to the Appendix.
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EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
2016 State of Online Community for Customer Support – October 2016

6. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Demand Metric is grateful to Vanilla Forums for sponsoring this research, and for
those who took the time to complete the study survey.
About Vanilla Forums
Founded in December 2009, Vanilla started as an open source project. Today, Vanilla's
software-as-a-service (cloud) offering helps thousands of companies provide a great
community experience to millions of people worldwide.
Vanilla has reinvented online forums and offers a modern user experience that your
customers have come to expect. With Vanilla, you can build a branded community
that looks exactly like your website, set roles and permissions for customers and staff,
reward customer participation with points, ranks and badges, manage the community
with powerful moderation tools and integrate your community with your CRM system.
Learn more about Vanilla Forums at www.vanillaforums.org
About Demand Metric
Demand Metric is a marketing research and advisory firm serving a membership
community of over 70,000 marketing professionals and consultants in 75 countries.
Offering consulting methodologies, advisory services, and 500+ premium marketing
tools and templates, Demand Metric resources and expertise help the marketing
community plan more efficiently and effectively, answer the difficult questions about
their work with authority and conviction and complete marketing projects more
quickly and with greater confidence, boosting the respect of the marketing team and
making it easier to justify resources the team needs to succeed.
To learn more about Demand Metric, please visit: www.demandmetric.com
© 2016 Demand Metric Research Corporation. All Rights Reserved.
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322016 State of Online Community for Customer Support – October 2016

7. APPENDIX: SURVEY BACKGROUND
This 2016 Crowd Sourced and Self-Serve Support Study survey was administered
online during the period of August 2nd through August 31st, 2016. During this
period, 410 responses were collected, 271 of which were qualified and complete
enough for inclusion in the analysis. Only valid or correlated findings are shared in
this report.
The representativeness of this study’s results depends on the similarity of the sample
to environments in which this survey data is used for comparison or guidance.
Summarized below is the basic categorization data collected about respondents to
enable filtering and analysis of the data:
! Type of organization:
" Primarily B2B 42 percent
" Primarily B2C 23 percent
" Mixed B2B/B2C 35 percent
! Primary role of respondent
" President, CEO or owner 13 percent
" Marketing 43 percent
" Sales 5 percent
" Support 24 percent
" Other 15 percent
! Annual sales:
" Less than $10 million 50 percent
" $10 to $24 million 16 percent
" $25 to $99 million 11 percent
" $100 to $499 million 9 percent
" $500 to $999 million 3 percent
" $1 billion or more 11 percent
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332016 State of Online Community for Customer Support – October 2016

8. APPENDIX: SURVEY BACKGROUND
! Revenue growth environment in most recent fiscal year:
" Significant increase 14 percent
" Slight increase 56 percent
" Flat 18 percent
" Slight decline 9 percent
" Significant decline 3 percent
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342016 State of Online Community for Customer Support – October 2016