{"id":1891,"date":"2015-10-31T17:17:44","date_gmt":"2015-10-31T21:17:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/digital.hbs.edu\/platform-digit\/submission\/our-community-gives-a-hoot\/"},"modified":"2015-11-03T15:00:35","modified_gmt":"2015-11-03T20:00:35","slug":"our-community-gives-a-hoot","status":"publish","type":"hck-submission","link":"https:\/\/d3.harvard.edu\/platform-digit\/submission\/our-community-gives-a-hoot\/","title":{"rendered":"Our community gives a Hoot"},"content":{"rendered":"

Hootsuite is a company very comfortable with crowdsourcing: they crowdsourced ideas to name the company back in 2009 for a prize of $500.\u00a0 Hootsuite operates a freemium social media management service – used by enterprises of all sizes – that provides easy interfaces for online brand management (think a dashboard that displays and takes action on a company\u2019s twitter, facebook, IG, and YouTube presence at one time).\u00a0 Today, Hootsuite is using crowds in a new way via their online support communities.<\/p>\n

With over 10 million users around the world, Hootsuite uses their online community to manage customer engagement, satisfaction, and success.\u00a0 What is most innovative, however, is the use of \u201cAmbassadors\u201d to support this community.\u00a0 Ambassadors are not Hootsuite employees.\u00a0 They are knowledgeable and passionate users who support the community (in a crowdsourced way) without any specific affiliation to the company.\u00a0 How do they get these ambassadors incented?<\/p>\n

Becoming an ambassador provides Hootsuite training and certifications to start.\u00a0 Ambassadors are also provided points and swag for support activities within the community.\u00a0 More importantly, however, ambassadors value other intangible perks: visibility as a thought leader (often used to recruit for jobs as social platform engagement managers), building industry networks, learning best practices, and \u2013 most likely \u2013 for the benefit of belonging to a tightly knit community.<\/p>\n

\"Hootups
\nThe program is so successful that Hootsuite has more than 800 ambassadors in 57 countries.\u00a0 Lending credence to the \u201csense of belonging\u201d argument, Hootsuite community members and Ambassadors throw regular \u201cHootups\u201d \u2013 in-person social gatherings of community members around the world.\u00a0 More specifically: nearly 800 Hootups reaching 36,552 attendees in 80 cities over 62 countries to date.<\/p>\n

\"HootUp<\/a>
\nThese Hootups are pretty fanatical gatherings.\u00a0 Fans (the crowd) of the product come to evangelize best practices and share strategies.\u00a0 They even influence product directions.\u00a0 Best of all for Hootsuite, these Hootups are NOT coordinated or funded by Hootsuite (like most companies\u2019 customer conferences) \u2013 they are 100% organized by community members.<\/p>\n

That leads me to the value capture benefits of Hootsuite\u2019s community.\u00a0 There are some connections that could be made about topline revenue drivers from a strong community: prospective customers are drawn to the fanatical support of current users, current users are more likely to be satisfied and retained long-term, etc.\u00a0 But I would argue Hootsuite gets the most value of its crowdsourced community via significant\u00a0cost savings.
\nHootsuite uses its \u201ccrowd\u201d of Ambassadors as a way to supplement their IT support staff.\u00a0 When a customer writes a query about a product issue, certified community members become a resource of ideas and help to close the customer\u2019s query.\u00a0 Their responses also remain available to other users to prevent redundant inquiries.\u00a0 In that way, the company\u2019s community becomes more self-reliant. Most recent available statistics show that 50% of topics queried by customers are being resolved by other crowd members \u2013 greatly reducing Hootsuite\u2019s internal costs to service their embedded customer base.\u00a0 More concretely, before instituting their ambassador program, \u201cHootsuite had 475 support queries and was only able to respond directly to 136 of them. Eight months later with assistance from ambassadors, the company received only 231 queries and all but seven were addressed.\u201d\u00a0 That\u2019s a >50% reduction in customer inquiries and 97% response rate as opposed to 29%.<\/p>\n

The cost savings from these reductions has amplified as the company scales.\u00a0 Relying on the community helps Hootsuite scale their customer base and required support while keeping overhead down.\u00a0 I.e. fewer customer support managers and IT helpdesk resources to cover more customers.\u00a0 They can therefore have exponential growth in the future as opposed to linear growth required with customer support teams. In addition, they are able to more effectively and cheaply support customers in foreign markets: community members can translate inquiries and support in multiple languages better than Hootsuite\u2019s internal employees.<\/p>\n

Hootsuite\u2019s successful management of its crowd-sourced community has been critical to its growth \u2013 and allowed it to more effectively and efficiently service over 75% of the Fortune 1000 as its customers.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Sources:<\/p>\n

https:\/\/hootsuite.com\/community\/<\/a><\/p>\n

https:\/\/getsatisfaction.com\/corp\/resource-center\/case_studies\/hootsuite.php<\/a><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Hootsuite leverages its loyal online community to crowdsource customer support, in turn reducing internal support costs.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":30,"featured_media":1892,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","categories":[788,133],"class_list":["post-1891","hck-submission","type-hck-submission","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-communities","category-customer-support"],"connected_submission_link":"https:\/\/d3.harvard.edu\/platform-digit\/assignment\/leveraging-the-collective-intelligence-and-effort-of-digital-crowds\/","yoast_head":"\nOur community gives a Hoot - Digital Innovation and Transformation<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/d3.harvard.edu\/platform-digit\/submission\/our-community-gives-a-hoot\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Our community gives a Hoot - Digital Innovation and Transformation\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Hootsuite leverages its loyal online community to crowdsource customer support, in turn reducing internal support costs.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/d3.harvard.edu\/platform-digit\/submission\/our-community-gives-a-hoot\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Digital Innovation and Transformation\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2015-11-03T20:00:35+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/d3.harvard.edu\/platform-digit\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2015\/10\/Hootsuite-Logo1.png\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"348\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"97\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/png\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"3 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\\\/\\\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/d3.harvard.edu\\\/platform-digit\\\/submission\\\/our-community-gives-a-hoot\\\/\",\"url\":\"https:\\\/\\\/d3.harvard.edu\\\/platform-digit\\\/submission\\\/our-community-gives-a-hoot\\\/\",\"name\":\"Our community gives a Hoot - Digital Innovation and Transformation\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/d3.harvard.edu\\\/platform-digit\\\/#website\"},\"primaryImageOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/d3.harvard.edu\\\/platform-digit\\\/submission\\\/our-community-gives-a-hoot\\\/#primaryimage\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/d3.harvard.edu\\\/platform-digit\\\/submission\\\/our-community-gives-a-hoot\\\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\\\/\\\/d3.harvard.edu\\\/platform-digit\\\/wp-content\\\/uploads\\\/sites\\\/2\\\/2015\\\/10\\\/Hootsuite-Logo1.png\",\"datePublished\":\"2015-10-31T21:17:44+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2015-11-03T20:00:35+00:00\",\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/d3.harvard.edu\\\/platform-digit\\\/submission\\\/our-community-gives-a-hoot\\\/#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\\\/\\\/d3.harvard.edu\\\/platform-digit\\\/submission\\\/our-community-gives-a-hoot\\\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/d3.harvard.edu\\\/platform-digit\\\/submission\\\/our-community-gives-a-hoot\\\/#primaryimage\",\"url\":\"https:\\\/\\\/d3.harvard.edu\\\/platform-digit\\\/wp-content\\\/uploads\\\/sites\\\/2\\\/2015\\\/10\\\/Hootsuite-Logo1.png\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\\\/\\\/d3.harvard.edu\\\/platform-digit\\\/wp-content\\\/uploads\\\/sites\\\/2\\\/2015\\\/10\\\/Hootsuite-Logo1.png\",\"width\":348,\"height\":97},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/d3.harvard.edu\\\/platform-digit\\\/submission\\\/our-community-gives-a-hoot\\\/#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\\\/\\\/d3.harvard.edu\\\/platform-digit\\\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"Submissions\",\"item\":\"https:\\\/\\\/d3.harvard.edu\\\/platform-digit\\\/submission\\\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":3,\"name\":\"Our community gives a Hoot\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/d3.harvard.edu\\\/platform-digit\\\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\\\/\\\/d3.harvard.edu\\\/platform-digit\\\/\",\"name\":\"Digital Innovation and Transformation\",\"description\":\"MBA Student Perspectives\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"性视界Action\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\\\/\\\/d3.harvard.edu\\\/platform-digit\\\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":{\"@type\":\"PropertyValueSpecification\",\"valueRequired\":true,\"valueName\":\"search_term_string\"}}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"}]}<\/script>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Our community gives a Hoot - Digital Innovation and Transformation","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/d3.harvard.edu\/platform-digit\/submission\/our-community-gives-a-hoot\/","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Our community gives a Hoot - Digital Innovation and Transformation","og_description":"Hootsuite leverages its loyal online community to crowdsource customer support, in turn reducing internal support costs.","og_url":"https:\/\/d3.harvard.edu\/platform-digit\/submission\/our-community-gives-a-hoot\/","og_site_name":"Digital Innovation and Transformation","article_modified_time":"2015-11-03T20:00:35+00:00","og_image":[{"width":348,"height":97,"url":"https:\/\/d3.harvard.edu\/platform-digit\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2015\/10\/Hootsuite-Logo1.png","type":"image\/png"}],"twitter_card":"summary_large_image","twitter_misc":{"Est. reading time":"3 minutes"},"schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/d3.harvard.edu\/platform-digit\/submission\/our-community-gives-a-hoot\/","url":"https:\/\/d3.harvard.edu\/platform-digit\/submission\/our-community-gives-a-hoot\/","name":"Our community gives a Hoot - Digital Innovation and Transformation","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/d3.harvard.edu\/platform-digit\/#website"},"primaryImageOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/d3.harvard.edu\/platform-digit\/submission\/our-community-gives-a-hoot\/#primaryimage"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/d3.harvard.edu\/platform-digit\/submission\/our-community-gives-a-hoot\/#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"https:\/\/d3.harvard.edu\/platform-digit\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2015\/10\/Hootsuite-Logo1.png","datePublished":"2015-10-31T21:17:44+00:00","dateModified":"2015-11-03T20:00:35+00:00","breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/d3.harvard.edu\/platform-digit\/submission\/our-community-gives-a-hoot\/#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/d3.harvard.edu\/platform-digit\/submission\/our-community-gives-a-hoot\/"]}]},{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/d3.harvard.edu\/platform-digit\/submission\/our-community-gives-a-hoot\/#primaryimage","url":"https:\/\/d3.harvard.edu\/platform-digit\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2015\/10\/Hootsuite-Logo1.png","contentUrl":"https:\/\/d3.harvard.edu\/platform-digit\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2015\/10\/Hootsuite-Logo1.png","width":348,"height":97},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/d3.harvard.edu\/platform-digit\/submission\/our-community-gives-a-hoot\/#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/d3.harvard.edu\/platform-digit\/"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Submissions","item":"https:\/\/d3.harvard.edu\/platform-digit\/submission\/"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"name":"Our community gives a Hoot"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/d3.harvard.edu\/platform-digit\/#website","url":"https:\/\/d3.harvard.edu\/platform-digit\/","name":"Digital Innovation and Transformation","description":"MBA Student Perspectives","potentialAction":[{"@type":"性视界Action","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/d3.harvard.edu\/platform-digit\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/d3.harvard.edu\/platform-digit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/hck-submission\/1891","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/d3.harvard.edu\/platform-digit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/hck-submission"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/d3.harvard.edu\/platform-digit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/hck-submission"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/d3.harvard.edu\/platform-digit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/30"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/d3.harvard.edu\/platform-digit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1891"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/d3.harvard.edu\/platform-digit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/hck-submission\/1891\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/d3.harvard.edu\/platform-digit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1892"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/d3.harvard.edu\/platform-digit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1891"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/d3.harvard.edu\/platform-digit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1891"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}