Company: Vipnet
Entry submitted by: Hrvoje Puljko (puljac) Community (Forum) expert
Community: Vip forum (http://forum.vip.hr)
Lithy category: Excellence in Customer Satisfaction
Vipnet is the first private mobile network operator in Croatia, a part of the Telekom Austria Group. By entering the Croatian telecommunications market in 1998, Vipnet introduced competition into mobile telephony. Over the last 15 years Vipnet acquired the status of the most renowned innovation leader on the telecommunications market in Croatia.
Vipnet was the first in Europe to demonstrate the HSPA network, thus offering mobile Internet access that is faster than ADSL. Furthermore, Vipnet was among the first in the world to successfully test HSPA+ technology for mobile broadband. In June 2013 at the Faculty of Electrical Engineering and Computing in Zagreb Vipnet set a new world record for the fixed segment with speeds of 5 Gbit/s using the hybrid fiber coaxial (HFC) network, and in the mobile segment presented speeds of up to 300 Mbit/s based on 4.5G – LTE Advanced technology. In September 2012 and again this year Vipnet was proclaimed winner in the Best value for money for business in the Business Best Buy Award. Vipnet currently has more than 2 million customers.
Vip forum as a goal has multiscreen customer experience, to increase street credibility, and to be customers' first choice when searching for support information.
Vip forum also has a purpose to increase brand awareness and to be the place for engaging existing and future Vip customers.
Vip forum represents a new crowdsourcing platform intended for gadget and online discussion enthusiasts seeking fast, simple, precise and competent answers to all their questions concerning telecommunication technologies, products and services.
Vip forum was launched at the end of August 2013 as Vipnet’s first crowdsourcing platform. In just six months, Vip forum has become a unique place for online discussions about telecom technology, products and services in Croatia.
In its first 6 months of existence, Vip forum has generated 600,000 visits and a pool of 1600 registered users, which have proven to be very active with more than 12,000 posts.
Out of 1600 registered users, approximately 10% are active* continuously on a monthly basis.
(*active members are those which have one or more posts per month – counted as one; not included are members who only login and read)
The idea to have an engaged community that is self-sustained has been achieved, since crowd ratio is constantly above 90% (ratio of user posts over moderator posts).
High scores of satisfaction were given by forum users in recent surveys conducted:
- 96% found or got an answer for their question
- 90% do not have a need for any other contact towards Vipnet (through customer services or shops)
- Vip forum NPS is 51%
BUILDING USER ENGAGEMENT
Vipnet’s vision from the very beginning was to create a place where everyone is welcome, not just Vipnet customers, and to create a non-censored playground where users can show their personal knowledge and expertise by providing valuable content.
To embrace this crowdsourcing concept and to start building user engagement, well established names from online community and IT/telco journalists were involved in Vip forum trial and helped to design final version of community platform.
During the 2 week trial, beta testers spent more than 200 hours online and generated more than 50 different ideas and improvements which were implemented in final Vip forum version.
Whole usability testing was done directly on the forum, enabling participants to be recognized as co-creators of new community.
During this trial, the forum received an excellent SUS* score from users which participated in SUS survey questionnaires => 87,5
(SUS* - the System Usability Scale ISO standard ISO 9241 Part 11, Measures Usability & Learnability)
Beta testing purpose, besides functionality test, was also to gather pre-SuperUsers which will actively participate in forum after the public launch.
The purpose is fully accomplished, all beta testers are still active on Vip forum, and they alone provide a high percentage of answers to community questions.
Also, they are now a pool of usability testers for other Vipnet products and services, as independent and respected telco enthusiasts.
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