Best New Community: PayPal Community Help Forum

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Category: Best New Community

 

Community: Paypal

Launch Date: October 27, 2009

Submitted by: Paypal Community Manager AmandaK

 

Since its launch in 1998, PayPal has been a global leader in online payments, providing customers in over 190 countries the most loved way to pay and get paid online.

 

In addition to traditional online customer support options, we recently introduced an entirely new way for customers to interact with PayPal – and each other!

PayPal Community Help Forum (PPCHF) is a peer-to-peer community for PayPal members to come together and help one another.

Since its debut in October 2009, the response from our customers has been active and lively.

Learning about online commerce in the fast-paced, ever growing world of the Internet can be daunting. But by sharing experiences, tips, and advice with other customers, the help forum has truly embraced the meaning of the word “community”.

 

Visitors from around the world – novice, intermediate, and experienced alike – have made PPCHF a popular virtual social network, regardless of one’s abilities, product knowledge, or even geographical location.

 

New members use the forum to find hints and suggestions from those who already use PayPal, and experienced customers chat about ways to make payment processing even easier. eBay members learn what happens after an auction closes, how to get paid, or how to send money overseas. Online merchants discuss business-related topics, such as PayPal integration, best practices, or SEO and sales strategies.
Many PayPal members use PPCHF daily to share their passion and insight with others. Already having posted more than 3,000 times, top contributor “skier” not only responds to questions but also provides feedback and suggestions to PayPal about improving service and the PPCHF itself.

In return, the forum helps us discover “hot button” and emerging issues, and gives us even greater insight into how our members use PayPal. By offering an online face and personality, our community members feel that their feedback is valued, and we’ve generated positive word of mouth. In only five months, nearly 50,000 PayPal members have registered for PPCHF, with an average of 550 logging in per day.

With more than 5 million searches and 10,000 threads, members have embraced PPCHF as the new way to quickly and easily find answers to commonly asked questions and learn how others use PayPal to their advantage.

The potential for this young community is just beginning to show itself!