Medion AG
Author Details: Name: Arnd Rychel Title: Community Infrastructure Engineer Company: Medion AG Tell us about you, your company, and your team? About me: I have been working at MEDION since 2000. Since 2014, I've been in charge of the MEDION Community as Community Manager. Company: MEDION, as one of the very few companies that boasts a comprehensive portfolio of classic entertainment electronics as well as information technology products, remains in a position to respond to the demands of a digital and networked CE market with its user-friendly product range in the Project Business segment. In addition to its traditional business involving special sales promotions of consumer electronics products in Europe, MEDION also markets a complementary line of services, particularly in the areas of telecommunications, photo services, downloads and other online services. MEDION is also continuing to strengthen its brand as a symbol of products and services offering high quality and best value for money as well as excellent design. MEDION has a good presence in Germany and the entire eurozone, as well as in Scandinavia and the UK, and with the support of its retail and cooperation partners maintains very well organized and professional sales and service units in these countries. Our team: Our ‘International Knowledge Management’ team collects internal and external knowledge and makes it available both within the company and to end customers. In addition to operating instructions and downloads of drivers, our work also includes service processes and the maintenance of product databases and FAQs. How does your role and your team support your company and its goals? We select and distribute knowledge in order to reduce support requests and improve self-service, among other things. Who were the teams and use cases you put this solution in place for? What challenges was this solution intended to solve? We have introduced the Community to generally relieve the entire After Sales process. The aim was to expand self-service. 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. Among other things, the community FAQs are integrated via API on our service homepage. We have optimised our FAQs in two main ways for this purpose. For product-specific FAQs, the name and material number are stored in the footer of the FAQ so that they can be displayed to the searching end customer in conjunction with our product database on our service homepage. On the other hand, IRIS codes are stored in the footer of general FAQs so that they can be used in conjunction with our online troubleshooter. Depending on the result, the customer can either help themselves and thus avoid sending in the device or start a repair service online, whereby all relevant data (including the IRIS codes) is transmitted to the repair service centre. What were the business outcomes and value driven by addressing these challenges? Please share specific results, metrics, and/or KPIs that quantify the change. Self-service has enabled costs to be saved in the After Sales Support and repair departments. No specific key figures are available. What were the progress outcomes driven by addressing these challenges? Please share specific results, metrics, and/or KPIs that quantify the change. The (API) integration on our service homepage significantly reduces support enquiries (call, email) and repair submissions. The integration of public and internal FAQs on the intranet provides call centre agents with extensive knowledge in a structured manner. Concrete key figures are not available. 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? The combination of customised modules at code level (html, css, variables) is what makes the complex workflow with external systems possible in the first place. What parts of your experience working with Khoros enabled you to address the need or challenge? We implement most of our customisation ourselves. However, if things get more complex or there is no OOTB solution, the teamwork with Khoros is very good and effective (example: customisation of SSO with the help of Nils Drews).Schneider Electric
Author Details: Name: Zineb EZ-ZERROUQI Title: Global Customer Engagement Leader, Online Communities Company: Schneider Electric Tell us about you, your company, and your team? Schneider’s purpose is to create Impact by empowering all to make the most of our energy and resources, bridging progress and sustainability. At Schneider, we call this Life Is On. Our mission is to be the trusted partner in Sustainability and Efficiency. We are a global industrial technology leader bringing world-leading expertise in electrification, automation and digitization to smart industries, resilient infrastructure, future-proof data centers, intelligent buildings, and intuitive homes. Anchored by our deep domain expertise, we provide integrated end-to-end lifecycle AI enabled Industrial IoT solutions with connected products, automation, software, and services, delivering digital twins to enable profitable growth for our customers. We are a people company with an ecosystem of 168,000 colleagues and more than a million partners operating in over 100 countries to ensure proximity to our customers and stakeholders. We embrace diversity and inclusion in everything we do, guided by our meaningful purpose of a sustainable future for all. Our community team is dedicated to enhancing and maintaining our community platform, ensuring it remains a vibrant and engaging space for all users. Comprising eight talented individuals, we focus on technical development, customer engagement, and performance monitoring. Our mission is to create a seamless and enriching experience for our community members. We strive to continuously improve the platform’s features, foster meaningful interactions, and ensure optimal performance. Our team consists of the following roles, with each leader supported by additional team members: Community Platform Owner is a key role responsible for the overall success and strategic direction of the community platform. This individual ensures that the platform meets the needs of its users and aligns with the organization’s goals. Technical/Product Leader who oversees the development and implementation of new features. Customer Engagement Leader who manages and organizes content for the platform and drives user engagement and community activities. Adoption Leader who ensures that new technologies and processes are effectively integrated and utilized within the community platform and is responsible for improving the visibility and ranking of the community platform in search engine results. Performance Analyst who monitors and analyzes platform performance to ensure a smooth user experience. How does your role and your team support your company and its goals? Our Community team consists of 8 individuals with complementary skills and expertise, working collaboratively towards a common goal or objective. The team members have defined roles and responsibilities, meet regularly to discuss progress and challenges, and leverage each other's strengths to deliver high-quality work. The team environment fosters open communication, mutual support, and a shared sense of accountability for the team's outcomes to drive the success of our community. Great people make Schneider Electric a great company. Our ultimate ambition is to deliver higher performance and greater employee engagement, through world-class people practices that are supported by a multi-hub model. Schneider Electric is a people-centric company where employees come to work for a meaningful purpose and are empowered to deliver impact in an inclusive environment. The Schneider Electric Community offers several benefits that can significantly help our company Schneider Electric in various ways: Knowledge Sharing and Problem Solving: The community provides a platform for users to discuss and solve problems related to energy management and automation. This collaborative environment helps in quickly addressing technical issues and sharing best practices. User Engagement and Feedback: By engaging with users directly, Schneider Electric can gather valuable feedback on their products and services. This feedback can be used to improve existing offerings and develop new solutions that better meet customer needs. Training and Development: The community offers access to customized training. This helps users upgrade their skills and knowledge, ensuring they can effectively use Schneider Electric’s products and solutions. Innovation and Co-Creation: The community fosters innovation by allowing users to co-innovate and collaborate with a global network of peers. This can lead to the development of new ideas and solutions that benefit both Schneider Electric and its customers. Increased Visibility and Brand Loyalty: Active participation in the community can increase Schneider Electric’s visibility and strengthen brand loyalty. Engaging with users and providing valuable resources can build a strong, loyal customer base. By leveraging the Schneider Electric Community, our company can enhance customer satisfaction, drive innovation, and maintain a competitive edge in the market. Who were the teams and use cases you put this solution in place for? What challenges was this solution intended to solve? Customers who have EcoStruxure IT data center software: Schneider Electric internal users Users who need help installing, setting up, and configuring their software go to the EcoStruxure IT Help Center to search the documentation for guidance. Users who encounter issues that are not addressed in the documentation go to the community to search for posts about their situation or create a new post to ask the other users for assistance. EcoStruxure IT technical communicators Technical writers create online help articles for end users and gain insights on effectiveness from platform analytics to share with product owners. The help center gathers documentation for the entire data center infrastructure management (DCIM) software suite. Paired with the community forum, everything the customer or end user needs is in one place. The challenge: Software documentation is scattered across product pages and is created in different formats: online articles, PDF format, and in some cases is embedded in the product. The help center presents all the products in the DCIM offer in one place where users can search for content or links to resources. 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. Three new teams have asked to join and host their content on the help center. These teams use older and more traditional methods of creating content, creating books or manuals, and having technical support create FAQs published on a different site. They’ve seen the flexibility and the benefits of managing their documentation directly in the help center and reaching customers where they are – in the community. The platform integrates with mySchneider. Within our team, this has saved us 20 hours per week, which gives us additional time to author new content. We have one person dedicated to the Help Center, one writer focused on a specific product, and another team adopting it. The time savings are immediate in authoring, editing, and publishing, allowing us to provide new information to customers in real time. Increased usage has led to the need for more staff, which is a positive development! While it’s a bit of an exaggeration to say the staff has quadrupled, we have certainly grown. Additionally, there are significant time savings in the documentation delivery process. The authoring interface is user-friendly, with draft management capabilities well-integrated across the platform. Challenging the status quo, “the way we’ve always done it” and encouraging colleagues who have never explored a new way of working in documentation was difficult. It took the better part of a year to convince one team to try a proof of concept. SmartConnect content has moved from hosting CHM-like help pages on their product portal to the help center. The install base is large, and user engagement in that category immediately increased significantly. The PCNS team is in the process of migrating the FAQs created by support to the help center instead of using their CRM tool. They will now create and maintain content in the help center Software services team has asked to create and maintain user-facing content on the help center instead of local PDFs. A technical expert was assigned to regularly monitor the posts in the community. What were the business outcomes and value driven by addressing these challenges? Please share specific results, metrics, and/or KPIs that quantify the change. Excellent customer engagements stats from the analytics: EcoStruxure IT Help Center home page Visits: 64,317 (2024) vs 15,722 (2023): +309% YoY Unique Visitors: 37,371(2024) vs 10,572 (2023): +253% YoY Page Views: 80,079 (2024) vs 20,920 (2023): +283% YoY EcoStruxure IT Help Center Categories Visits: 380 117 (2024) vs 1283 (2023): +29,527% YoY Unique Visitors: 295 006 (2024) vs 840 (2023): +35,000% YoY Page Views: 604 977 (2024) vs 2318 (2023): +26,000% YoY What were the progress outcomes driven by addressing these challenges? Please share specific results, metrics, and/or KPIs that quantify the change. As highlighted in the analytics shared earlier, we’ve seen a significant increase in several key metrics: Page Views: There has been a substantial rise in the number of page views, indicating that more users are engaging with our content. Visitors and Unique Visitors: The number of visitors and unique visitors has also grown considerably, reflecting a broader reach and increased interest in our Help Center. Community Engagement: Achieving 0 unanswered questions is a fantastic milestone for our community. This accomplishment demonstrates our commitment to providing timely and effective support. Solution Views and Accepted Solutions: There has been a notable increase in both solution views and accepted solutions. This indicates that users are not only finding the answers they need but are also validating the quality and usefulness of the solutions provided. These metrics underscore the positive impact of our efforts to enhance the Help Center and foster a supportive community environment. 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? The Khoros AI solution distinguished itself in several keyways that significantly contributed to our ability to achieve our goals for the year: Automated Moderation: Khoros AI’s automated moderation tools helped maintain a positive community environment by efficiently filtering out inappropriate content and flagging potential issues, saving valuable time and resources. Personalized User Experience: By analyzing user behavior and preferences, Khoros AI enabled us to deliver personalized content and recommendations, which enhanced user satisfaction and engagement. Scalability: The solution’s scalability ensured that we could maintain high levels of service and engagement as our community grew, without compromising on quality. Integration Capabilities: Seamless integration with our existing tools and platforms allowed for a unified approach to community management and data analysis. Support and Training: Access to comprehensive support and training resources ensured that our team could fully leverage the AI capabilities, maximizing the solution’s impact. Other factors that contributed to our success included strong internal collaboration, clear goal-setting, and continuous feedback loops to refine our strategies based on real-time data and insights. What parts of your experience working with Khoros enabled you to address the need or challenge? Working with Khoros provided several key advantages that enabled us to address the need/challenge effectively: Comprehensive Analytics: Khoros’ great analytics tools allowed us to gain deep insights into community engagement and user behavior, helping to identify areas needing improvement. Efficient Moderation: The platform’s advanced moderation features streamlined the process of managing community interactions, ensuring a positive and safe environment for all users. Customizable Solutions: Khoros offered some flexible and customizable solutions that could be tailored to meet specific community needs, making it easier to implement targeted strategies. Support and Training: Access to Khoros’ support and training resources ensured that our team was well-equipped to utilize the platform’s features to their fullest potential.Canon USA
Author Details: Name: Christopher Canada Title: Community Manager Company: Canon USA Tell us about you, your company, and your team? I have had the privilege of supporting our customers in various capacities throughout my career, ranging from service support to my current role as a Community Manager. Canon U.S.A. Inc., a leading provider of consumer, business and industrial imaging solutions has a rich heritage of innovation and a commitment to excellence for over half a century. I am proud to be a part of the customer service organization, where our primary goals are to learn from our customers so that we can proactively anticipate their needs and adapt to an ever-changing business environment. How does your role and your team support your company and its goals? As the Community Manager within the Customer Support division at Canon U.S.A., Inc., my role is integral to supporting our company’s goal of providing best-in-class service and support. By leveraging all available tools, our community consistently delivers solutions to customers precisely when and where they need them. We also actively recognize and celebrate our super users, whose contributions help bring these solutions to the forefront, ensuring that our customers receive exceptional service at every touchpoint. Who were the teams and use cases you put this solution in place for? What challenges was this solution intended to solve? The solution involved defining, designing, and implementing a strategy to launch a community super user group. This strategy was deployed across key teams within the Customer Support division, particularly those focused on enhancing customer engagement and support outcomes. The primary use cases included empowering top community contributors to provide peer support, fostering knowledge sharing, and accelerating problem resolution. The challenges this solution aimed to address were the need for more proactive customer support, faster issue resolution, and better engagement with our most active community members. Additionally, this group provided a platform to recognize and connect with users who advocate for our brand, further strengthening our relationship with these key supporters. By creating a super user group, we were able to bring expert-level solutions to the forefront, significantly improving the customer experience. The charts below illustrate the positive impact of our super user engagement, showing a significant increase in the number of solutions generated per day following the launch of our private group hub. This demonstrates the effectiveness of fostering collaboration among our top contributors and highlights their critical role in driving meaningful solutions for the community. 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. In the past year, one of our major wins was successfully addressing a challenge related to increasing customer engagement and contributing to call deflection. Our community super user group played a pivotal role in this effort. The challenge we faced was the need to provide more timely and accurate solutions to customers. By empowering our super users, we created a network of highly knowledgeable individuals who could assist with complex issues, thereby contributing to call deflection and extending the reach of community solutions throughout the organization. The opportunity here was not just about improving support efficiency but also about fostering a more engaged and loyal community. The Customer Support and Community Management teams collaborated closely on this initiative, leveraging the super user group to bridge gaps in coverage and provide peer-to-peer support. This approach allowed us to meet our support goals more effectively and strengthened our relationships with top contributors, who became even more invested in our brand. Overall, the implementation of the super user strategy has been a significant innovation that has enhanced our support model and contributed to our goal of delivering best-in-class service. What were the business outcomes and value driven by addressing these challenges? Please share specific results, metrics, and/or KPIs that quantify the change. By implementing our community super user group, we achieved significant business outcomes: Enhanced Self-Service Tools: The super user group contributed to our portfolio of self-service tools, resulting in an 8% increase in the number of solutions produced each day compared to 2023. Increased Community Engagement: The initiative also led to enhanced community engagement, with over 3 million solution views year-to-date in 2024 and a 15% solution-to-topic ratio, reflecting a strong alignment between community contributions and customer needs. What were the progress outcomes driven by addressing these challenges? Please share specific results, metrics, and/or KPIs that quantify the change. Addressing the challenges with our community super user group led to a key progress outcome: Positive Influence on Conversions: The increased visibility and relevance of community-driven content positively influenced product conversions. Both organic and formal product mentions in content contributed to higher conversion rates, as customers were more engaged and informed about our offerings. Additionally, we began capturing acquisition data to better understand customer behavior. This initiative is expected to positively impact community engagement by providing insights that help tailor our content and interactions to meet customer needs more effectively. 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? The Khoros Communities solution played a crucial role in helping us achieve our goals for the year. Its benefits were integral to our success: SEO-Optimized Content: The platform’s ability to produce SEO-optimized content significantly enhanced the visibility of our community solutions. This optimization helped drive more organic traffic to our community and knowledge base, increasing the reach and impact of the solutions we provided. Easy API Integration: Khoros Communities facilitated seamless API integration, which was key in promoting solutions throughout the customer journey. This integration supported federated search on our company website and allowed for timely content updates to our knowledge base, ensuring that valuable solutions were easily accessible wherever customers interacted with our brand. In addition to these features, the support and training provided by Khoros were instrumental in maximizing the platform’s potential and ensuring effective implementation of our community strategy. What parts of your experience working with Khoros enabled you to address the need or challenge? Working with Khoros enabled us to effectively address our challenges through several key aspects of the experience: Tailored Support and Training: Khoros provided comprehensive support and training that was crucial for our team. This guidance helped us fully understand and utilize the platform’s features, allowing us to implement best practices for community management and optimize the use of SEO and API integration capabilities. Flexibility and Customization: The flexibility of the Khoros platform allowed us to tailor the community experience to our specific needs. We were able to customize user roles and permissions, which empowered our super users and facilitated more effective collaboration and solution sharing. Integration Capabilities: The ease of integrating Khoros with our existing tools and systems was a significant advantage. This seamless integration enabled us to incorporate community solutions into our broader support infrastructure, enhancing the accessibility and effectiveness of our self-service tools and knowledge base. Data-Driven Insights: The platform’s advanced analytics and reporting tools provided valuable insights into community engagement and content performance. These insights helped us make informed decisions and continuously improve our community strategy, addressing our need for more effective support and engagement solutions. The analytics & reporting tools help us measure badge performance, rank up performance, solutions to topic ratio and first reply to topic ratio to name a few. This data provides insights on activity & engagement as our badges are designed to reward key behaviors including solutions authored, posts, replies and likes. Overall, the support, customization options, integration capabilities, and data-driven insights provided by Khoros were instrumental in overcoming our challenges and achieving our community management goals.
