Company: Autodesk
Entry submitted by: Lois Townsend (loisT) Director, Social Media and Community
Community: Autodesk Community (Forums.autodesk.com)
Lithy category: Support Savings MVP
Autodesk, Inc., is a leader in 3D design, engineering and entertainment software. Customers across the manufacturing, architecture, building, construction, and media and entertainment industries—including the last 19 Academy Award winners for Best Visual Effects—use Autodesk software to design, visualize, and simulate their ideas before they're ever built or created. From blockbuster visual effects and buildings that create their own energy to electric cars and the batteries that power them, the work of our 3D software customers is everywhere you look.
Since its introduction of AutoCAD software in 1982, Autodesk continues to develop the broadest portfolio of state-of-the-art 3D software for global markets. Through our apps for iPhone, iPad, iPod, and Android, we're also making design technology accessible to professional designers as well as amateur designers, homeowners, students, and casual creators. Whether it's a kid looking to build a new contraption, a seasoned pro sketching out a great new idea, or someone who just wants to amp up their creative output, we're taking technology originally built for movie studios, automakers, and architectural firms, and making it available to anyone who wants to create and share their ideas with the world.
Autodesk, one of the world leaders in 3D design, engineering, and entertainment software is delivering on customers’ needs before they ask. Autodesk drives customer loyalty and product affinity through a Total Community strategy. The strategy includes activations on Facebook, nearly 200,000 followers on Twitter, more than 40 million views on YouTube, and a branded community, running on the Lithium platform, which has seen its unique visitors grow by 34% in the last year, with a membership of 2million+ customers.
One of the pillars of the Autodesk social strategy is its branded community which is the main hub for directly connecting with customers. Dating back to 1986, with Compuserve, Autodesk has leveraged community to foster peer-to-peer to support, drive greater brand affinity, and solidify relationships with its customers. It has evolved to focus on collaborating with and anticipating the needs of customers.
Now its nine communities in multiple languages offer customers unique experiences by industry, region, and expertise level. The company shares product use information, solves potential product issues, and promotes best practices to proactively supply customers with the tools and information needed for a successful product experience supporting Autodesk’s customer care goals which are centered on rapid, relevant, service, support and learning for every customer.
Autodesk’s recently-launched Knowledge Network (AKN) as a place for users to find product solutions, learn more about products and link in to the community. When looking for support, top knowledge based articles appear in search results, which even include accepted solutions from the community. This speaks volumes to the importance of the Autodesk Community participation for quick problem solving capabilities, not to mention the Expert Elites our Super Users of Autodesk Community who answer support questions directly. In the last 12 months, nearly 20 million unique visitors came to the AKN site to learn and explore, troubleshoot an issue, or download software.
Autodesk’s Expert Elite are the Super Fans and lifeblood of the Autodesk Community. The Autodesk Expert Elite program was created to recognize customers around the world who have contributed a significant amount of time, knowledge, and assistance to fellow customers. These people have demonstrated a strong sense of leadership and use an engaging style of collaboration that contributes to a healthy and valuable customer community. The program now has over 200 members representing 23 different countries. They have delivered 7,000 accepted solutions, received 17,000 kudos and posted 60,000 replies.
Autodesk has also recognized the importance of video content on the community, and last year piloted and launched a webinar program to proactively offer customers another way to learn about and experience Autodesk products. For instance, the Installation and Licensing Community hosted “Troubleshooting Desktop Subscription Licensing issues” webinar to give users the information they need to get the “software up and ready.” The Autodesk Help webinar series is a virtual studio house, with regular, and in some cases weekly offerings. Webinar attendance can be as high as 200 live attendees and videos posted online can reach over 5,000 views. Over 50% of webinar attendees are repeat participants because they derive continued value from the webinar content.
These programs provide information that helps our customers get their products up and running quickly. Our goal is helping customers to optimize productivity and with these programs our service and support professionals can begin to shift reactive help to providing more proactive solutions to our customers.
Our business results
Autodesk’s collaborative and proactive approach supported by several key programs, including Expert Elite, Knowledge Network, and Autodesk Help Webinars. The tactics have delivered the following community success metrics:
- Autodesk Communities received over 27 million unique visits in the last 12 months.
- Autodesk Community successfully serves answers to millions of customers, yielding a multimillion dollar value to Autodesk and its customers.
- Customer success is tracked and measured via surveys to ensure that the community is providing actual solutions, and at an increasing rate.
- The community has more than 2 million registered members that have shared more than 135,000 kudos and over 20,000 newly accepted solutions in the last year.
