Hello team,
We’ve been inviting users to our Community and have been getting regular stream of new users.
However, it’s been surprising to see how little people stick around. Some metrics:
There is quite a bit of content and engagement on the Community, but maybe not enough to encourage Users to open Topics and at least read something…
Has anyone faced this issue?? If so, how did you solve it??
Thanks!!
Gio
Instead of looking at improving specific metrics, why not look at the value your community gives to its users? Ask them for feedback and you’ll definitely get useful info.
Infact, that is exactly how we improve on a feature or part of Discourse that isn’t working!
Thanks for sharing @osioke, some interesting anecdotes in that post!!
We have been conducting interviews and people communicate they’re very interested in the value it brings (it’s a community for users of a SaaS); specifically getting their questions answered on and learning about how others are using the software. But maybe (IMO) not enough value to take time out of their day.
Is more research needed in your opinion to get to the bottom of it??
Thanks again
I guess you have the solution then. Structure/design your community around answering questions and sharing how people use the software can help.
Maybe @smileypants707 can help with something more detailed? We’ve been working on random health checks trying to help community managers like you, so his health checks may give you a bit more insight.
Hello @osioke,
Over the past weeks we’ve been inviting Users and ensuring the Community is being used as an effective support & troubleshooting tool, and seems to be working better as exactly that (more topics, posts, etc.) that result in more User questions answered.
We’ve linked the Community in various locations on the platform, communications with users, and our support articles. This being said, most of the traffic is coming from direct conversations with users (on Intercom) and asking to post on the conversation. Point being, it still feels a little like pushing a rock uphill and not getting the required momentum just yet.
Do you have any advice on next steps??
Thanks in advance!!
Seeing as the community is being leveraged as a support and troubleshooting tool, then it makes sense that what you’ve described is happening in the beginning. This should improve with time as more and more users find the community through their journey within your product/platform.
A way to see/measure growth would be to see if you are getting the same amount of topics, posts and questions being asked on Intercom, on the community. Seeing as you’d want it to be used for support and troubleshooting, then this should tell you more. If you want to increase its usage though, you’ll have to start looking at how to make it as prominent in your customer journey as Intercom is, and maybe route members to the community instead of to Intercom.
Doing this would mean you’d have to look at how users usually end up or go to Intercom, and see how you can place the community in their path before Intercom and convince them they’ll get good answers just like they would in Intercom.
Thanks @osioke, the Community is communicated in all the welcome and setup emails, as is Intercom.
Perhaps what I should have clarified is that what I’m finding is that Users are more prone to use Intercom (despite quick and detailed responses on Community), as it’s a real time chat. Do you have any suggestions on how to improve this perception for Users??
Many thanks!!
What you’ve described as a problem is a habit, so you’ll want the users to change that habit and that would be really tricky to suggest on without a bit more work and analysis on my part. And right now, I can’t say or promise I can do that anytime soon.
yes, that’s exactly right @osioke - take your time!! but if you do have any existing resources or links you’d recommend, I’d be very interested in reading them.
thanks in advance for your help.
On persuasion design and building habits into products, I have found Nir Eyal and B. J. Fogg’s work to be very helpful and instructive. I’ll share links to the specific ones I think would help you build a mental model with which you can use to better view this scenario and come up with a solution.
