Google & Twitter vs. Call Centers: Crowdsourcing Tech Support to Save Money Comments

Note: The term crowdsourcing as it related to this post refers to the use of social web applications  like social networks (Facebook), online forums (CrackBerry), blogs (AskDaveTaylor.com) and Twitter (@comcastcares)  for solving tech support issues.

Chances are you despise calling a tech support number. Companies probably hate providing telephone-based tech support even more. According to a study published by The Association of Support Professionals, small to mid level companies spend 15-20% of their revenue in support cost. Indiana University’s 24-hour tech-support help desks spends about $11.41 per phone call and $9.39 per e-mail message, Last year they handled over 150,00 inquiries.

I personally rather Google a tech issue or send out a Facebook or Twitter update asking my friends/followers before dialing a 1.800 number. I asked my Facebook friends if they preferred Google vs. call center and the answers were unanimously pro-Google (except Colin Smith who would rather ask Jesus).

Scenario: Crowdsourcing a Blackberry Tech Issue

Let’s say a tech-support expert for Blackberry answer the following question on the Crackberry forum – how can I set up a picture in the new Bold Blackberry messager? The person who asked the question then comments on that response with, “thank you – it worked!” Voila! That is one less call to the Blackberry tech support center.

Now imagine that the next day, 200 people Google “how to set up picture on new blackberry messager”. Chances are they will stumble upon that posts and solve the problem themselves quickly and efficiently. The more people validate that that answer, the more authority and visibility the posts will get on search engines. Additionally, people will share the link via email, Facebook, Twitter, etc whenever someone asks them the same question. 

Several approaches to crowdsourcing tech-support:

1. Building open access help forums or Q+A platforms within your product sites (e.g. Yahoo! Answers)
2. Assembling a tech support team to monitor and respond to tech support queries in online forums, Twitter and other relevant communities
3. Assembling a customer service team to monitor and respond to costumer rants and complaints in online forums, twitter and other relevant communities
4. Adopting Voice of The Costumer (VOC) technologies to continually funnel customer and employee feedback from multiple channels (email, Web, print, phone) into a central database for analysis and immediate action.
5. Creating a tech and customer support Twitter account to respond to people’s issues via Twitter
6. Making internal tech support knowledge bases public and open source – e.g. Wikipedia style platform for your products

What other ways can companies use the web to crowdsource tech support and customer service issues?