Author Details:
- Name: Mihaela Andruseac
- Title: Community Manager
- Company: Orange Romania
Tell us about you, your company, and your team?
I am the Community Manager, I was hired in Nov 2018 especially for this project and I helped launch the Orange Romania Community in June 2019 and we grew beautifully in the past 5 years. We started with Ring Central (ex Dimelo) as our initial platform provider and after a while we switched platform providers and we are very happy with Khoros.
We are a team of 3 people - 1 Community Manager and 2 Moderators (Daniela & Georgiana) and we are part of the Consumer Operations & Transformation Department at Orange Romania.
How does your role and your team support your company and its goals?
The Community Team is helping with all Community related activities (managing and moderating, delivering clients insights, user testing on specific topics, Superusers program and so on) and the main goal is to decrease costs with calls and chat / messenger (call & chat / mess deflection).
Who were the teams and use cases you put this solution in place for? What challenges was this solution intended to solve?
Teams Involved:
- Community Team
- Marketing Team
- IT Team
Use Cases:
- Transitioning the Support Community from an old provider to Khoros
- Launching the Superusers program to enhance community engagement and support
- Set an annual feedback survey for community members to gather insights and improve the community experience
Challenges Addressed:
- End-of-life platform provider: transition to one of the top community platform providers in the market allowed us to modernize our community infrastructure and the constant support that we received during the transition and after was extremely needed (we didn't have any support in the past in terms of benchmarking, market insights, strategy)
- Scalable Self-Service: improved access to new features on the new platform, reducing the need for direct support - generating call & chat / messenger deflection
- Knowledge Management: centralized information sharing to ensure users can find answers quickly
- Community Engagement: encouraged active participation through the Superusers program, fostering a sense of belonging and loyalty & improving specific KPIs such as "time to 1st answer"
- Innovation and Growth: leveraged community insights to drive product improvements and enhance customer satisfaction through Superusers program, specific testing sessions & feedback survey.
What is a recent win, major innovation, or challenge your team has tackled in the past year that this solution helped you address? Describe the challenge, opportunity, and teams involved.
Challenge: The previous platform provider announced an end-of-life timeline, meaning no updates, developments, or additional support from that moment and the product to be closed in 3 years. This posed a significant risk to our community's functionality and user experience.
Opportunity: Switching to Khoros platform allowed us to modernize our community infrastructure and the constant support was extremely needed. During the same period we launched our Superusers program that empowered engaged members to assist others during the transition, ensuring continuity and support. And they were very helpful for the Community Team during the User Testing period. With the help of our annual feedback survey we improved user experience by managing specific features the platform has.
Teams Involved:
- Community Management Team: helped during transition, developed the Superusers program and launched the feedback survey
- Marketing Team: promoted the benefits of the new platform and the Superusers initiative to our Orange Romania customers. Helped with translations and description texts for the community pages
- IT Team: helped with the technical part of the transition.
What were the business outcomes and value driven by addressing these challenges? Please share specific results, metrics, and/or KPIs that quantify the change.
- Deflection rate: increase by 11% in 6 months timeframe from a total of 121K to 134.5K call & chat / messenger deflected - generating cost reduction
- Testing sessions with Superusers: since we launched the Superusers program we received testing scenarios from internal teams. The Superusers' feedback is highly appreciated internally and changes are made based on their feedback and we close the loop by presenting them the high-level roadmap with changes planned internally.
- CEO was present to our event with Superusers: we organized an event to celebrate 5 years of Orange Community and the Superusers felt appreciated and valued by our internal teams present and by our CEO that gathered insights directly from the source and exchanged ideas. The CEO knows how important the Community is and the generated value.
What were the progress outcomes driven by addressing these challenges? Please share specific results, metrics, and/or KPIs that quantify the change.
- Decrease in time to 1st answer: Average time to 1st answer decreased by 29% (6 months timeframe) from an average of 76 minutes to 54 minutes
- Increased Engagement: Community participation increased by 82% in 6 months after the transition; replies / topic ration is above average based on community benchmarking registering 9.69 vs 4.56 average & posts per member entrance ration is also above average with 0.51 vs 0.28
- KPI: Active members count rose from an average of 350/month to 637/month (active members - logged in and posted content)
- Solutions / topics ration above average in community benchmarking with 40.33% vs 24.72% average
- Private room inside the community platform: Easier for superusers to participate and to develop the program even further (before the transition we had another platform where we discussed with them and it was very difficult for them)
- Launching superusers program: Generating free time for community team to tackle more
important things like strategy and engagement activities
Organic search visits-per-total visit ratio
What differentiated the Khoros Communities solution in your ability to achieve/deliver on your goals for the year? What in the solution helped enable it? Were other factors involved?
- Robust Analytics: Advanced analytics tools provided insights into user behavior and community trends, enabling data-driven decisions for improvements.
- Customizable Features: The ability to tailor the platform to our specific needs allowed for the effective implementation of the Superusers program (dedicated private room inside the community) and feedback mechanisms.
- Scalability: The platform's scalability ensured that it could grow with our community, accommodating increased membership and activity without performance issues.
- Enabling Factors: Comprehensive training from Khoros for the Community Management and IT teams ensured a smooth transition and effective use of the platform's features. Because of these specific pre-registered training found on Atlas the Community Team and other internal teams involved during and after the transition knew exactly what to do and how. Also the possibility to have a conversation with a Strategist from Khoros was very important in terms of planning and delivering results.
- Active Superusers: The involvement of Superusers provided peer support and fostered a sense of community, enhancing overall engagement.
- Community Team: Our dedicated team was hands-on during the transition and after in order to deliver our internal goals.
What parts of your experience working with Khoros enabled you to address the need or challenge?
- Comprehensive Onboarding: The onboarding process provided thorough training and resources, ensuring our team was well-equipped to utilize the platform effectively from the start.
- Dedicated Support: Access to Khoros support teams allowed us to quickly resolve technical issues and receive guidance on best practices, facilitating a smoother transition.
- Community Best Practices and Benchmarking: Khoros shared insights and case studies from other successful communities, helping us implement proven strategies tailored to our needs.
- Flexible Customization Options: The ability to customize features and functionalities allowed us to create a community experience that aligned with our specific goals and user preferences.
- Regular Updates and Enhancements: Continuous improvements and new features from Khoros kept our community platform modern and responsive to user needs, enhancing overall satisfaction.