Past Lithys (old format)
Check out Lithy entries from previous years.
If you are a Lithium customer and you have a great story to tell, you're proud of the impact your community is making, or if it has changed the game for your company, let us know about it. The first ever Social CRM Excellence Awards are open. Find o... See more...
If you are a Lithium customer and you have a great story to tell, you're proud of the impact your community is making, or if it has changed the game for your company, let us know about it. The first ever Social CRM Excellence Awards are open. Find out more and enter now!   ------ Category: Best New Community   Community: Jigsaw Launch Date: September 29, 2009 Submitted by: Jigsaw Community Marketing Manager Communitygal   As a leading provider of business information and data services that is uniquely crowd sourced by a global community of over 1 million business to business (BtoB) contacts, Jigsaw needed a community platform that provided members with better tools to interact with each other. In September 2009, Jigsaw launched the Lithium community platform and in the spirit of community sourcing--a premise on which the company is founded--allowed its members to nominate and select its own name. "The Corner" is both a reference to the corner piece of a jigsaw puzzle and a double entendre for where people go to hang out and talk.   The Corner deserves to win the Best New Community category because it is Lithium's first BtoB business information community and has been enthusiastically embraced by both Jigsaw members and management.   Jigsaw's community members visit The Corner to not just discuss Jigsaw usage and find answers to their questions but also to discuss BtoB topics such as innovative sales strategies, trade prospecting information on companies, and much more. Additionally, The Corner has been an instrumental part of Jigsaw's feedback and customer support systems. Since inception of the Lithium platform, Jigsaw has already implemented 13 product ideas that were submitted by members in the Member Idea Exchange board.   The Corner has been steadily growing in popularity. Page views for the community increased by 355% after launching the Lithium platform compared to the previous message board; unique visitors have also increased by 612%.   Jigsaw also noticed that its members were eager to help each other get the most out of the site. So much so that they've recently started moving its support assets to The Corner as they feel  this would be the right first point of contact for getting help. If other members can't resolve an issue, it goes onto the support team. This shift parallels Jigsaw's philosophy toward community sourcing solutions. The Corner has become a vital and dynamic part of the Jigsaw community and as such, Jigsaw is investing in making it better. The next month will see a new and improved homepage for The Corner that will have a more organized look with tabs and snapshots. New employee blogs are also slated to go up soon, and the next initiative is to create a top sales books board where members submit and vote for their favorite sales books.  
Company: HP  Categories: Best Community Story or Anecdote Entered by: Dani Weinstein (Dani) Community Name: HP Support Community URL: hp.com/supportforum   Get to know Erico...   Retired from the US Coast Guard, Erico is a US ... See more...
Company: HP  Categories: Best Community Story or Anecdote Entered by: Dani Weinstein (Dani) Community Name: HP Support Community URL: hp.com/supportforum   Get to know Erico...   Retired from the US Coast Guard, Erico is a US expatriate living in the Netherlands. During his Coast Guard career, Erico participated in many rescue missions around the world... A hardware genius, Erico personally owns 6 personal computers and 2 monitors.  As a sideline, he operates a small PC repair shop.  He notes that it’s a way of keeping his skills sharp and staying in touch... Erico and the HP Forums...Erico is “addicted” to the forums.  Spending many hours conversing with HP users around the world, he loves helping others, and... HP loves having Erico as an true fan and valued enthusiast.   As a treat, the HP team got to meet Erico and say thank you personally - from L-R: HP EMEA Leads Sabrina Grollier and Wendy Schippers, Erico and Global HP Lead, Dani Weinstein.  
Company: HP Categories: Best Community Business Integration Entered by: Dani Weinstein (Dani) Community Name: HP Support Community URL: hp.com/supportforum Seven HP Consumer Support Forums were launched between November 2008 and Febru... See more...
Company: HP Categories: Best Community Business Integration Entered by: Dani Weinstein (Dani) Community Name: HP Support Community URL: hp.com/supportforum Seven HP Consumer Support Forums were launched between November 2008 and February 2010. HP Consumer Support Forums are available in seven languages and in more than 200 countries. Collectively these forums have grown exponentially and continue to grow significantly well in to their third year of operation.   HP customers have shown that online channels are a preferred method for finding answers to questions about HP products. To date, more than 20 million customers have resolved their issues via the HP Consumer Support Forum.     The HP Consumer Support Forum is easy to navigate, and visitors now have access to more than 600,000 forum posts on a myriad of technology topics. Discussion boards are broken out by topic area, such as Notebooks, Desktops and Printers, and offer search capabilities and advanced features like bookmarks, RSS feeds and rich multimedia.   HP also actively monitors the forum to identify common support issues and gain customer feedback and insights. This customer input is then used to improve future products and support. HP’s online service and support offerings include the HP Total Care Ambassador Program and a dedicated HP support video channel.   The HP Consumer Support Forum also features dedicated Expert Days where more than 100 experts across the globe spend 24 hours answering tech questions. HP will host the next Meet the Experts event from April 26 at noon ET to April 27 at noon ET. As part of a continued initiative to provide superior customer support, HP has added seamless mobile functionality to the HP Consumer Support Forum.   The HP Mobile Consumer Support Forum may be accessed anywhere, anytime from any mobile device – no app download required. Visitors can browse content, post questions and even assist other customers all while on the go.   Finally the HP Support Forums were recognized in Nov 2010 with a prestigious Groundswell award. The HP Consumer Support Forum is a free global interactive community where HP customers connect online with one another and exchange insights, tips and answers to each other’s questions.   The forum received the accolades in the award category of International Business to Consumer: Supporting. “We’re thrilled by the diversity and quality of the entries in this year’s International Forrester Groundswell Awards,” said Nate Elliott, principal analyst at Forrester. “With consumers worldwide embracing social technologies, the Groundswell is now global. The finalists and winners we’ve recognized – including local efforts on four continents and a number of truly global programs – are among the leaders in using social tools to reach and serve their customers.”   2010 Awards for the HP Consumer Support Community   • 2010 TSIA STAR Award for Best Online Community • 2010, 2009, 2008 TSIA Excellence In Service Operations • 2010 Forrester Groundswell Award for Social Technologies (Groundswell Award Press Release) • 2010 Mashable Award Finalist • TSIA Hall of Fame Life Time Achievement • 2010 Hay Group Top 20 Best Companies for Leadership    
Company: HP Categories: Most Innovative Social Customer Program Entered by: Dani Weinstein (Dani) Community Name: HP Support Community URL: hp.com/supportforum   Expert Day Key Feature: Ask questions, get answers LIVE from HP enthus... See more...
Company: HP Categories: Most Innovative Social Customer Program Entered by: Dani Weinstein (Dani) Community Name: HP Support Community URL: hp.com/supportforum   Expert Day Key Feature: Ask questions, get answers LIVE from HP enthusiasts and experts   On the forums, we strive to nurture a highly engaged and robust support community by reaching out and talking with customers and cultivating and rewarding high-powered community members. The HP Ambassadors are dedicated HP employees who converse with customers and share their expertise to solve issues, find information, and help customers get the most out of their HP products and services.   As of December 2010, over 100 HP Ambassadors were actively participating on the forums with impressive resolution success and a healthy contribution to the community’s overall health and effectiveness.   The results were notable:   5% of the total number of posts were written by Ambassadors  and they authored 10% of Accepted Solutions,  while receiving 7% of Kudos.    In addition to the HP Ambassadors, Forums SuperContributors are enthusiastic customers who voluntarily share and help fellow peers on the forums. SuperContributors are growing in numbers while making a significant global impact through tremendous participation and engagement.   In December 2010, there were over 50 SuperContributors worldwide. They created a whopping 52% of Accepted Solutions, and received 54% of Kudos.   Bringing further excitement and value to the community are the Expert Day events on the HP Forums, which are held periodically throughout the year.   In January 2011, the Global Social Media team hosted a global Expert Day that spanned across all printing and computing topics for customers.   Most recently on March 23 rd a highly successful Expert Day was held in German.     Fondly termed the “Super Bowl” of expert assistance, these events give customers 24 hours of free access to a wealth of technical experts in 4 languages:   English,  German Simplified Chinese,  and Korean.    The broad appeal to our customers was apparent with over 100,000 customers attending the event online, and over 230 HP experts sharing their knowledge and experience with customers that day.   In the English Forums, there was a 707% increase in solved threads, a 555% increase in posts, and a 307% increase in new members. In the Chinese Forums we saw a 975% jump in new customers who chose the Forum as a trusted channel for troubleshooting. These new members came to post with an overwhelming 1406% increase in posts and a 100% increase in solved threads.  The Korean Forum also exhibited impressive success. Though it is uncommon for Korean customers to readily extend “thank yous” in online communities, their Expert Day wrapped up with a 200% increase in kudos and a 200% increase in solved threads attributed to the enormous 2075% increase in posts!    Needless to say, customers were thrilled to connect with the best and brightest minds HP has to offer, and LIVE! HP Expert Day has been an incredibly powerful way to effectively increase problem resolution via the web and, most importantly delight customers real-time!    
Company: HP Categories: Best Community ROI Entered by: Dani Weinstein (Dani) Community Name: HP Support Community URL: hp.com/supportforum Highlights:   Exponential growth in page views across 7 language Forums Averaging more ... See more...
Company: HP Categories: Best Community ROI Entered by: Dani Weinstein (Dani) Community Name: HP Support Community URL: hp.com/supportforum Highlights:   Exponential growth in page views across 7 language Forums Averaging more that 65% year over year growth in forum visits  Global visits are approaching 20% of HP Customer Care Web Site  More than 20 million customers found solutions from 600,000+ posts Steady increases in problem resolution and call deflection rates   English launched Nov. 2008                               www.hp.com/supportforum m.hp.com/supportforum   Spanish launched March 2009 www.hp.com/foro     Simplified Chinese launched April 2009 www.hp.com.cn/get-answers     French launched June 2009 www.hp.com/assistance     Portuguese (Brazil) Sept 2009 www.hp.com.br/forum Portuguese (Portugal) www.hp.pt/forum     Korean Launched Nov 2009 www.hp.co.kr/hpcommunity     German Launched Feb 2010 www.hp.com/kundenforum  
Company: Research in Motion Categories: Best Community Story or Anecdote Entered by: Kerri Birtch (kerrib), Social Support Planning Team Community Name: Blackberry Support Community Forums  URL: supportforums.blackberry.com What ... See more...
Company: Research in Motion Categories: Best Community Story or Anecdote Entered by: Kerri Birtch (kerrib), Social Support Planning Team Community Name: Blackberry Support Community Forums  URL: supportforums.blackberry.com What is a Super User? On the BlackBerry Support Community Forums they’re more than just active community members: They are truly the super glue that holds our community together.   Many of our Super Users spend more than 20 hours a week participating on our Forums and their individual post counts range from 1,000 to more than 30,000 posts! They’re always glad to answer questions, investigate issues and occasionally discuss the best way to prepare a cheeseburger. When asked why they keep coming back to the BSCF, the most common response is: “Because I love to help people and I love my BlackBerry”.   We recently celebrated our 3rd Birthday and to show our love for the community, we launched a rockin’ new redesign as well as a brand new Spanish instance.   In honour of our Birthday, Super User 'Bifocals' offered these kind words which we feel demonstrate the bond of all our Super Users:   “Through this forum I have met people from every spot on the globe. They have given me the priceless opportunity to learn about customs and cultures I could never have otherwise experienced. I am honored to have formed close friendships and share personal experiences with people I have would have never have had the pleasure of meeting outside of this forum. I joined this forum to learn about my Blackberry Curve. In retrospect of all I have gained here the technical knowledge I was looking for is actually a bonus. Happy Birthday BSCF!”   We can’t imagine what our Forums would be like without the glue that holds us together. So, to encourage these great community contributions, we as Administrators of the BSCF make every effort to maintain a great relationship with our Super Users.   Whether it’s our weekly Happy Friday posts, our quarterly Conference Calls or a chance to meet in person with our special invitation to attend BlackBerry World 2011 (formerly Wireless Enterprise Symposium), we make sure that we’re truly connecting with them on every level. They have our email, our phone number and our BBM PIN’s – and can get access to us just about any time of day.   This relationship allows us the chance to get feedback directly from the heart of the community, and to be honest, we also have a lot of fun along the way! By allowing them direct access and encouraging a feeling of camaraderie, there is a great feeling of mutual respect and understanding.   Without the super glue that is our Super Users, we would not be the vibrant support community we are today.
Company: Lenovo Categories: Best Community Story or Anecdote Entered by: Mark Hopkins (Mark_Hopkins) Community Name: Lenovo Community  URL: forums.lenovo.com If the Lenovo Community has a secret formula, it's the collaboration with ou... See more...
Company: Lenovo Categories: Best Community Story or Anecdote Entered by: Mark Hopkins (Mark_Hopkins) Community Name: Lenovo Community  URL: forums.lenovo.com If the Lenovo Community has a secret formula, it's the collaboration with our superusers established long before we launched.  When we decided to launch our own community, we asked ourselves what would happen if we invited our customers to help us build, run, and develop the community instead of just presenting it to the world and hoping it would work. In other words, what if we threw our customers the keys?   That’s exactly what we did. The community runs with a moderation team composed entirely of customer volunteers from all over the world—US, Australia, Canada, Germany, India, Pakistan, and Turkey.  Initially, the collaboration focused on the operation of the community - the policies, the rules, and the content. We tapped the experience of this group - many who are also admins and moderators in other technology communities to develop community rules and practices, and to encourage the team to identify and recruit rising talent from within the ranks as the community grew.   Over the last three years of operation, a group of approximately 30 members contributed 44% of the solutions in the community, and in less than one year helped us grow the community knowledge base to over 1200 articles.  We've shared our problem solving objectives and found mutual purpose in helping customers through the community and the group has responded, doubling our effective montly accepted solution rate. While I expected that we would have a shared purpose with our super users in helping facilitate discussion about our products, I have been surprised by how the relationship has grown with several of our volunteer moderators taking it to the next level and getting involved in helping develop the community working in Lithium Studio, our staging site, and also participating directly here in the Lithosphere.  They're reading about community best practices, successfully submitting ideas for features they value in other communities like the quick reply feature, sharing their community experience with others, have been recognized for their Lithosphere contributions through Kudos and even a spot on the VIP Council.   After reading Michael Wu's blog post series on rank progression, JaneL, one of our volunteer moderators noted that our original rank structure was holding us back.     Jane developed and implemented a new structure that allowed user advancement along multiple paths depending upon user participation style, all while adding a bit of fun and mystery with computer themed rank names ranging from "Punch Cards", to “What’s DOS”, and the ever-elusive "TrackPoint Cap". Jane, known on the Lithosphere as jloyless has contributed a number of ideas which have been implemented.   Erik, another volunteer moderator and frequent Lithosphere participant, contributes his time and talent as a graphic designer and has been responsible for most of the header and announcement images found throughout our community since inception, including our current TKB hero image above.   When our community added two new languages last year, Erik learned to use Lithium Studio and, along with Cleo—one of our community admins, developed the new skin and tabbed navigation style that we thought worked so well on the Lithosphere.  As we launched our German community, andyP and several other English/German volunteer moderators jumped into our staging site to help us tweak the localization terms and served as goodwill ambassadors, introducing us to an existing German forum and the rest of the German social ecosphere.   This year our superusers are helping Lenovo develop a community advocate program to recognize and enable even more helpfulness in others. Community practitioners frequently gravitate to stats when describing what makes superusers super—the thousands of hours spent helping others, dozens of ideas, hundreds of solutions, and thousands of posts contributed.     Our community has all that, but perhaps when it comes to the diverse talents of your super contributors the better question is not "How super are you?" but rather "How are you super?"
Company: Research in Motio n Categories: Most Innovative Social Customer Program Entered by: Kerri Birtch (kerrib), Social Support Planning Team Community Name: Blackberry Support Community Forums  URL: supportforums.blackberry.com   ... See more...
Company: Research in Motio n Categories: Most Innovative Social Customer Program Entered by: Kerri Birtch (kerrib), Social Support Planning Team Community Name: Blackberry Support Community Forums  URL: supportforums.blackberry.com   In the three years since the launch of the BlackBerry Support Community Forums, our overall support community has grown exponentially, particularly in past year as our organization has rolled out even more avenues to assist with social support.    Our approach to social support has a focus on empowering our customers and offering the tools they need to find a solution to their query.   This is done in a variety of ways including:   Maintaining strong ties with our Super User members on the Forums; integrating our Developer Support Forums and Resource Centre into the platform; interacting via Twitter to provide links to Knowledge Base articles or YouTube videos, and continually providing connections to the BlackBerry Help blog and the BlackBerry Developer blog.   By ensuring that all resources are easily accessible to users and directing them to the correct resources, we are able to cultivate a support community that is not limited to just the Forums, but one that is based on strong, networked ties, allowing our customers to get social support from the channel they are most comfort with.       Our newly launched site redesign will assist in enhancing this network as we have created more prominent connections to all of our social support channels. New features of the redesign include a more clear break down of support categories to allow users to easily navigate to their area of interest, a real time blog and Twitter feed which is customized to that specific support area, (Developers Support Forums feed has the Developer Blog, Business Support has the @BlackBerry4Biz Twitter account etc.), as well as a dedicated section where users can find links to all of our other BlackBerry communities.      With our commitment to empowering users and creating social support channels to assist them, we are able to provide our customers with timely responses, reliable support information and some friendly interactions along the way. 
Company: The Home Depot Categories:  - Most Innovative Social Customer Program   - Best New Community     Entered by: Tia Robinson (tdrtia) Community Name: The Home Depot How-To Community URL: community.homedepot.com Launch... See more...
Company: The Home Depot Categories:  - Most Innovative Social Customer Program   - Best New Community     Entered by: Tia Robinson (tdrtia) Community Name: The Home Depot How-To Community URL: community.homedepot.com Launched: October 11, 2010   We should win either the - Most Innovative Social Customer Program and/or Best New Community award because: We launched the premier destination for DIY and home improvement discussions on the internet.   No matter how big or small - people can come to our Community to ask questions, share their expertise and to learn something new.   Members of the Home Depot How-To Community earn rank and status among their peers by participating in the site on a regular basis and offering their expertise to other users. Visitors to community.homedepot.com will find discussions organized in categories including Paint, Tools and Hardware, Garden and Yard and Do-it-Yourself and Repair. Visitors will also find some different types of members in our Community: Store Associates   We’ve trained a team of store associates who spend a dedicated amount of time each week helping customers in this community. These “designated associates” help answer product and project questions and share their knowledge and experience with the entire community. These associates might not always be the first ones to answer, for two important reasons.   First, we want to give other members of the community the chance to show their stuff. We know there are a lot of really experienced DIYers out there, and we want to hear great ideas and tips from them as well. Also, our designated associates will often take some time to research the most thorough answer possible so members can get all the info they need to get their projects done right. Regardless, members can generally expect our designated associates to chime in when appropriate within a 24-hour period of an initial post, if not sooner. Vendors & Partners Many of the companies who make the products are represented on our Community. You'll also find our many partners and other members of our Home Depot family here, ready to discuss all things DIY.   Members of the How-To Community can also: • Meet other DIY enthusiasts • Ask questions • Share tips • Post comments • Take polls • Share and browse pictures • Watch and share videos • Provide feedback to other users   The How-To Community also features a Meet Our Experts section that spotlights the community’s store associates and What’s New in Our Aisles section highlights new product innovations from The Home Depot.  
Company: AT&T Categories: Best Community ROI Entered by: Becky Woodworth (beckyww) Community Name: AT&T Community URL: forums.att.com Partnership – That’s the reason the return on investment for AT&T’s community has increased so drama... See more...
Company: AT&T Categories: Best Community ROI Entered by: Becky Woodworth (beckyww) Community Name: AT&T Community URL: forums.att.com Partnership – That’s the reason the return on investment for AT&T’s community has increased so dramatically.   In late October, 2010, AT&T and Lithium partnered to refine, polish and consolidate three different communities birthed at different times for different purposes from different AT&T business units. Our Wireless, DSL & Internet and U-verse communities operated largely independently without shared authentication, common design or similar structure.   After fixing “the outside” of AT&T forums in October, 2010, we then leveraged our Lithium partnership to address “the inside” in February, 2011.   Following Lithium’s advice on best practices, we analyzed months of customer data, board content, etc, to totally overhaul our community organization, categories and navigation.   The community likes the changes, and we like the ROI.   The ROI results to date include:   A steady increase in Board Replies since initial 2010 consolidation – in fact, an average of 310 vs. 164 Board Replies daily    Our members are more engaged – answering more questions – deflecting more calls.   A 16% increase in call shed savings January 2010 – January 2011  A 14% increase in call shed savings February 2010 – February 2011  A 14% increase in call shed savings March 2010 – March 2011    The mission of AT&T is to connect people with their world, everywhere they live and work, and do it better than anyone else. We believe our community is a growing contributor in fulfilling that mission.    
Company: TomTom Category: Best New Community (Launched after June 1, 2010) & Best Community ROI Usecase   Entered by: Kenneth Refsgaard (kendoji) Community Name: TomTom Discussions URL: discussions.tomtom.com Launched: March 1, 2011   ... See more...
Company: TomTom Category: Best New Community (Launched after June 1, 2010) & Best Community ROI Usecase   Entered by: Kenneth Refsgaard (kendoji) Community Name: TomTom Discussions URL: discussions.tomtom.com Launched: March 1, 2011   Entry:   We launched two weeks ago (March 1, 2011) but our community has been extremely active right from the start. We got a number of things right (thanks to all the support and advice we received from Lithium on best practices), including having all the recommended promotional plans in place, a good board structure, a nice and clean UI and thorough internal communication around guidelines. This has resulted in a smooth launch, with about 150 new registrations and 25,000 page views every day.   From launch we also immediately had support from numerous knowledgeable brand advocates (from third party navigation sites) who have been picking up just about every question posted on the community.  We thought it would take months before we had a vibrant community with active brand advocates answering all the questions - but it all came together on Day two! Using the Engagement Center ROI tally (tweaked with our own cost-per-incident), in our first two weeks we handled 20,000 cases and delivered a value of 150,000 USD!!  
Company: Verizon Residential Categories: Best Community Business Integration  Entered by: Becky Carroll (beckyc) Community Name: Verizon  URL: community.verizon.com   Verizon has always used our community forums as a main area of ... See more...
Company: Verizon Residential Categories: Best Community Business Integration  Entered by: Becky Carroll (beckyc) Community Name: Verizon  URL: community.verizon.com   Verizon has always used our community forums as a main area of customer insight. Our nearly 90,000 members have been actively sharing their opinions on Verizon products and services for the past three years.    Our goal at Verizon is to go beyond simply gathering customer opinions. We want to collaborate with our customers, so we launched the Verizon Idea Exchange in July 2010 with three main objectives:     Identify new product and service enhancement opportunities Facilitate customer-driven product/service enhancements or new products/services Enhance the Verizon brand as establishing innovative ways to engage with and serve customers       Open Innovation   The excitement from our customers around the Idea Exchange started almost immediately. Customers quickly began submitting suggestions for our products and services. In return, the product managers for our main product areas have become fully engaged with the Idea Exchange, especially around our flagship product FiOS. The FiOS managers now review customer-submitted ideas weekly as part of their business processes, are more engaged with the Verizon Community as a valuable resource, and are interacting with customers on an almost-daily basis.   The Verizon Community and the Idea Exchange has helped change the way the FiOS product team does business—starting with incorporating customer feedback into our latest FiOS release, 1.9 Interactive Media Guide for set top boxes.      Giving the Community a Sneak Peek Our FiOS product director was so energized by the power of the direct collaboration he and his team had been doing with customers that he created a new program, Sneak Peek. The 1.9 Sneak Peek offered customers in designated areas a preview of our latest Interactive Media Guide (IMG 1.9) for set top boxes in exchange for their feedback. The program not only provided another opportunity to connect customers directly with Verizon product managers, but it also utilized our forums members as a private study group to provide feedback on this new product. Members of the Verizon engineering team spent time interacting with customer in this private forum discussion around the upcoming release, and our forums members were thrilled to be given this opportunity to share their thoughts with them.   “I would like to extend my thanks to the engineering team and Verizon for the opportunity they have afforded us in beta testing the new IMG and especially the programming team for all their hard word and attention to our ramblings. Being an engineer (for more years than I care to admit) I really appreciate the hard work and the difficulty of the task for something as complex as the firmware.” Keyboards, customer and Verizon Community Leader “I also have to give a big thanks to the Verizon’s Engineering and Programming team for working with us in the beta testing. This was a complex task to write and rewrite all the software and firmware… keep us in mind for the next beta. Great job, Verizon! Thanks! :)” johnf2, customer and regular Community contributor   Customers Directly Impact the Product In fact, through the Idea Exchange, the 1.9 Sneak Peek, and the Verizon Community at large, a staggering 70-80 percent of what was put into the IMG 1.9 release was tweaked, suggested, or refined by our customers.    Here are just a few of the customer suggestions from the Idea Exchange that were included in the 1.9 IMG release:   The ability to extend a current DVR recording by an extra 10 minutes, 15 minutes, 30 minutes, 1 hour or 2 hours after the previously-established end time. Improved remote DVR management  from the Web (myverizon.com), mobile (DVR manager apps for Blackberry, Android, Apple, Palm and Windows Mobile platforms), and other STBs in the home. Improvements to DVR series managements and rescheduling logic that allow the DVR to better handle duplicate recordings.   Going forward, the FiOS product management team is also giving the community team access to their test track business customers, a FiOS business focus group. We’re working with the FiOS product management team on ways to integrate this focus group into similar product tie-ins on the Verizon Community, similar to the 1.9 Sneak Peek, so we can continue the close collaboration and customer insight. A True Engagement Community One of the most exciting areas has been the way programs such as the Idea Exchange and the Sneak Peek have increased levels of engagement with the Verizon Community. When the Idea Exchange first launched, our Community Leaders (CLs) grabbed onto it and started moderating the ideas, letting us know when they saw duplicates or customer questions needing attention. This was not a role we asked them to play, but they picked it up on their own as this new customer insight mechanism gained momentum. In addition, we have been seeing a lot of community “newbies” move from being lurkers to registered community members. Since our original community is a peer-to-peer support community, these customers may not have felt that they had anything to contribute to those technical discussions. However, anyone can contribute an idea, comment on another customer’s idea, or simply leave a vote. This has really helped fuel community growth and interest across our customer base. Results Since launch at the end of July 2010, we have seen the following results:   Over 1400 ideas submitted  Over 200 ideas are “in progress” throughout Verizon Already, 16 ideas have been implemented by the Verizon product teams Additionally, the Idea Exchange itself has been rapidly growing:   107% growth in comments 403% growth in votes 555% growth in visitors In summary, the Verizon Community has now become fully engrained in our product management processes. It has helped Verizon get closer to the customer, gain insights to help us take action, look for issues needing attention (early detection), and improve customer retention. We are truly changing the way we do business as a result of direct customer feedback from the Verizon Community!  
Company: HP Categories: Best Community Business Integration  Entered by: Margaret Nugent (manugent) Community Name: Enterprise Business Community | HP Online Forum  URL: h30499.www3.hp.com/   HP Enterprise Business group consolidate... See more...
Company: HP Categories: Best Community Business Integration  Entered by: Margaret Nugent (manugent) Community Name: Enterprise Business Community | HP Online Forum  URL: h30499.www3.hp.com/   HP Enterprise Business group consolidated 11 existing communities from HP.com legacy and external proprietary platforms to bring them together on one platform.   By consolidating our discussion forums to a single unified platform, we will be able to bring our community members new features and capabilities beyond what our legacy forums could provide. This also included combining our English and local language communities to the single instance.  
Company: National Instruments Categories: Best Community Business Integration Entered by: Laura Feeney (Laura) Community Name: NI Discussion Forums URL: forums.ni.com     National Instruments (NI) transforms the way engineers... See more...
Company: National Instruments Categories: Best Community Business Integration Entered by: Laura Feeney (Laura) Community Name: NI Discussion Forums URL: forums.ni.com     National Instruments (NI) transforms the way engineers and scientists around the world design and deploy systems. Often deemed the "Home Depot for Engineers," NI offers a wide variety of hardware and software products to empower technology leaders working on applications ranging from LEGO MINDSTORMS® NXT® software to hardware for the CERN supercollider. At National Instruments, we understand the importance of embracing our lead users and other customers when developing new product features for our flagship software platform, NI LabVIEW. While social innovation has been a hot topic among technology companies recently, we truly embrace this notion of co-innovation and have built user feedback into the development process. The LabVIEW Idea Exchange on our website (powered by Lithium) has been instrumental in our success. Customer Loyalty Survey Data As we began to think about building co-innovation into our LabVIEW development process, we knew we needed to gather more information about our community, because we intended for community members to be part of the process. We began by evaluating our community. We specifically wanted to embrace the audience of innovators and evangelists in our community, and to find these innovators and evangelists we used customer loyalty survey information.   The survey showed that 41 percent of NI customers are “active” NI community users. Additionally, the more active the customer is with the NI community, the more loyalty they are meaning they are:     likely to recommend to a colleague, repeat purchase the same product or or purchase new products.     This data, shown in the following graphs, emphasized the need for NI to embrace these customers for software development.     Objective One of our key social business objectives is to embrace our customers when developing new versions of LabVIEW. Using cutting-edge social technologies, we want to not only listen to their feedback but also incorporate it into our products. Because no industry represents more than 15 percent of our revenue, it is imperative that we gather feedback from various areas to prioritize new features and connect with lead users as we enter emerging markets or new vertical industries.   Strategies and Technologies After evaluating our audience and objectives, we came up with the following strategies: • Make it easy for NI customers to share, discuss and vote on new software features • Obtain feedback from lead users as we enter new markets  • Encourage customers to share their feedback in the community-driven software development areas • Launch customer-driven software developments at NIWeek 2010  • Integrate these ideas with traditional marketing  The LabVIEW Idea Exchange was born out of the need to implement the above strategies. Going beyond the typical beta program, it is one area of our website where the online community can interact directly with NI R&D and provide candid feedback about our products. We then work to incorporate their feedback into our products as much as possible, which results in increased customer satisfaction because they see that we pay close attention to their needs and suggestions.       We promoted the Idea Exchange on the NI home page.In the LabVIEW Idea Exchange , LabVIEW users can submit and vote on features covering topics such as user interface enhancements, performance improvements, computation capabilities, and hardware integration. Since August 2009, more than 2000 ideas have been submitted for consideration in future versions of LabVIEW. In August 2010, the newest version of LabVIEW launched with 14 new ideas incorporated into the product. This video shows some of the users whose ideas were incorporated.        The LabVIEW Idea Exchange includes ideas straight from customers interested in helping NI develop the next version of LabVIEW.   In today’s social environment many companies are interested in what their customers are saying, but do not know how to best gather this information. The most innovative characteristic of our activities is that we not only used social technology to listen to our customers, but we also incorporated their feedback directly into our products and gave them immediate access to our R&D team. Many companies are afraid of what their customers might say about their products, but by making co-innovation an important step in the product development cycle, we have been able to work with our customers to create better and more technical products.   Results Overall, the LabVIEW Idea Exchange has been a great success. One important measure is that it has decreased the number of customer complaints. Before the Idea Exchange existed, customers requested new features for the product by emailing a private database maintained by R&D, and if users had a complaint they often posted it to their own blogs. By launching an open, public idea board for users to share their feedback, we gave our customers a voice that they did not have before in the development of our software.   We have also seen an increase in our own productivity because we no longer have to guess on the priority of new software features. Now our community does the initial prioritization of these new features followed by our R&D team.   Some specific metrics follow: • 2,400 Ideas submitted across several software product lines (initial goal first year goal was 500) • More than 47,800 votes on product ideas • 9,470 customer comments on ideas • More than 45,400 unique visitors to the Idea Exchange, for a total of 99,100 visits  • LabVIEW 2010 included 14 new features from the Idea Exchange  • The LabVIEW 2011 beta (the new version will release in August) includes 13 new features from the Idea Exchange
Company: Silverpop Categories: Best Community Business Integration  Entered by: Karen Marchione (kmarchione) Community Name: Silverpop Online Community URL: community.silverpop.com Launched: May 3, 2011 When Silverpop began sea... See more...
Company: Silverpop Categories: Best Community Business Integration  Entered by: Karen Marchione (kmarchione) Community Name: Silverpop Online Community URL: community.silverpop.com Launched: May 3, 2011 When Silverpop began searching for a Community Forum solution, many of the key requirements during the vendor selection were system integration related. Silverpop chose Lithium primarily by being able to meet those requirements better than any of their competitors we evaluated.   Silverpop was able to leverage Lithium’s Single Sign-On Solution (PHP) to allow for easy integration with our custom Customer Support portal. Using the Single Sign-On Solution provided by Lithium, Silverpop’s Customer Community was developed in a way that makes it easily accessible to our customers via our Customer Support Portal and direct URL all using their same login credentials.   Single Sign on functionality is a huge benefit to our customers in that they don’t need to manage/maintain multiple user name/password logins when doing business with Silverpop, which has also fueled the adoption of our private customer community by more than 50% of our customer base.   Another key integration feature offered by Lithium and leveraged by Silverpop is their REST API tool set. Silverpop uses the REST API to pass customer data/information between the Community and our existing external systems such as Salesforce.com. For example, Silverpop was able to better and more accurately use Lithium reporting & metric tools by passing client specific data from Salesforce.com into the client’s user profile in Lithium. And thanks to Lithium we finally have a means for effectively managing all the great product ideas we receive from our customers in our Idea Exchange.   Using Lithium’s rest API, we are able to collect all of the Ideas submitted by our customers through our Customer Community and export needed data for further review and analysis. This export and review process has become a key part of our release planning cycle as it allows us to group the data in a variety of ways (by feature, status, customer, kudos, etc) and quickly identify candidates for a release.   Silverpop has additional plans this year to leverage Lithium’s API integration for the following:   Build our own custom Twitter feed/functionality into our Customer Community.  Build out a more robust integration with Salesforce.com for customer support case utilization.  Build a custom integration with our QlikView Business Intelligence system to import relevant customer KPI’s.  
Company: BSkyB Categories: Best New Community (Launched after June 1, 2010) Entered by: Stephen Marshall (stephenmarshall) Community Name: Sky Help Forum URL: helpforum.sky.com Launched: 25 October, 2010   Sky Support Forum launch... See more...
Company: BSkyB Categories: Best New Community (Launched after June 1, 2010) Entered by: Stephen Marshall (stephenmarshall) Community Name: Sky Help Forum URL: helpforum.sky.com Launched: 25 October, 2010   Sky Support Forum launched on 25th October 2010 with the aim of creating an engaging and active community for Sky customers to connect and support each other with Sky products and services.   A team of dedicated Sky Experts is also at disposal when queries are a little too complex to be resolved by peers. Even with very limited promotional activities, the community has been growing steadily and we have exceeded 16,000 registered members in less than 6 months.   We have 5 established superusers who have consistently been helping members with their questions and technical issues, and supported by the team of Sky Experts.     The forum is also linked to Sky’s online Help Centre to support our customers journey online and there are a range of video tutorials on a variety of useful guides such as how to programme your remote control or set up your wireless router.   Examples where we have used pictures to guide the customer through their journey:       The forum has been positively received by our users and every day there is a constant flow of activity on the forum and we are averaging 67,000 page views per day, over 1,500 posts per week and as mentioned above, we have over 16,000 registered users since launch.   A recent post by a forum user below: “I think we should congratulate sky on setting up a forum, where on the whole they are likley to get a lot of flack. I for one was very dubious that we would get answers, especially those actually admitting some things are wrong. We did get answers and it appears we have got a fix. Result.”   Other results include:   Over 2,000 Accepted Solutions to date Averaging 700 new registrations per week CHI (Community Health Index) Score of 638  
Company: Sephora Categories: - Best New Community (Launched after June 1, 2010) - Community Story or Anecdote - Most Innovative Social Customer Program   - Best Social Insight Entered by: Candace Sims (candace_sephora) Community N... See more...
Company: Sephora Categories: - Best New Community (Launched after June 1, 2010) - Community Story or Anecdote - Most Innovative Social Customer Program   - Best Social Insight Entered by: Candace Sims (candace_sephora) Community Name: Sephora BeautyTalk  URL: sephora.com/beautyadvice Launched: September 29, 2010   Sephora's community has used the best of what the Lithium platform has to offer by integrating both the Q&A and Discussion products into one community, and making it virtually seamless for the user to navigate.   We are always trying to work with Lithium to come up with new and innovate ideas to engage our user, and have had much success cultivating a community where beauty lovers can ask questions, share insights, get advice and offer each other support.   And example of this is a recent post started by one of our members thanking the other member of the community for helping her through a tough time. After she posted this, many other members followed suit and shared stories of their own, telling each other how much the community has helped them:     http://community.sephora.com/t5/Off-Topic/Getting-Personal/td-p/119253   We also have implemented many cool features into our community to gain user insight including:   Brand Founders Top 10 Favorite Products: A founder or makeup artist from one of our brands is highlighted each month, listing their favorite products. This area is one of the most highly clicked areas of BeautyTalk, and also drives sales for the company.  Sephora Asks: A new question is posed to our users every month, such as "What miracle beauty product would you invent?" and "What technology would you like to see in our stores?" This drives interaction with our clients and also gives us valuable insight into what our clients would like to see from us.  Top 10 Favorite Products on the Profile Page: Allows users to tell others in the community (and us) a little more about themselves through their favorite beauty products, and also inspires other users with what other people in the community love.  Featured Contributor / Best Advice / Best Comment: Highlights members of the community on our homepage. This week our Featured Contributor is the first user to reach the top rank of "Beauty Master" and over 1,200 hearts in the short few months she's been a member!    
Company: Verizon Residential Categories: Most Innovative Social Customer Program  Entered by: Becky Carroll (beckyc) Community Name: Verizon  URL: community.verizon.com   Verizon has always used our community forums as a main area... See more...
Company: Verizon Residential Categories: Most Innovative Social Customer Program  Entered by: Becky Carroll (beckyc) Community Name: Verizon  URL: community.verizon.com   Verizon has always used our community forums as a main area of customer insight. Our nearly 90,000 members have been actively sharing their opinions on Verizon products and services for the past three years.    Our goal at Verizon is to go beyond simply gathering customer opinions. We want to collaborate with our customers, so we launched the Verizon Idea Exchange in July 2010 with three main objectives:     Identify new product and service enhancement opportunities Facilitate customer-driven product/service enhancements or new products/services Enhance the Verizon brand as establishing innovative ways to engage with and serve customers       Open Innovation   The excitement from our customers around the Idea Exchange started almost immediately. Customers quickly began submitting suggestions for our products and services. In return, the product managers for our main product areas have become fully engaged with the Idea Exchange, especially around our flagship product FiOS. The FiOS managers now review customer-submitted ideas weekly as part of their business processes, are more engaged with the Verizon Community as a valuable resource, and are interacting with customers on an almost-daily basis.   The Verizon Community and the Idea Exchange has helped change the way the FiOS product team does business—starting with incorporating customer feedback into our latest FiOS release, 1.9 Interactive Media Guide for set top boxes.      Giving the Community a Sneak Peek Our FiOS product director was so energized by the power of the direct collaboration he and his team had been doing with customers that he created a new program, Sneak Peek. The 1.9 Sneak Peek offered customers in designated areas a preview of our latest Interactive Media Guide (IMG 1.9) for set top boxes in exchange for their feedback. The program not only provided another opportunity to connect customers directly with Verizon product managers, but it also utilized our forums members as a private study group to provide feedback on this new product. Members of the Verizon engineering team spent time interacting with customer in this private forum discussion around the upcoming release, and our forums members were thrilled to be given this opportunity to share their thoughts with them.   “I would like to extend my thanks to the engineering team and Verizon for the opportunity they have afforded us in beta testing the new IMG and especially the programming team for all their hard word and attention to our ramblings. Being an engineer (for more years than I care to admit) I really appreciate the hard work and the difficulty of the task for something as complex as the firmware.” Keyboards, customer and Verizon Community Leader “I also have to give a big thanks to the Verizon’s Engineering and Programming team for working with us in the beta testing. This was a complex task to write and rewrite all the software and firmware… keep us in mind for the next beta. Great job, Verizon! Thanks! :)” johnf2, customer and regular Community contributor   Customers Directly Impact the Product In fact, through the Idea Exchange, the 1.9 Sneak Peek, and the Verizon Community at large, a staggering 70-80 percent of what was put into the IMG 1.9 release was tweaked, suggested, or refined by our customers.    Here are just a few of the customer suggestions from the Idea Exchange that were included in the 1.9 IMG release:   The ability to extend a current DVR recording by an extra 10 minutes, 15 minutes, 30 minutes, 1 hour or 2 hours after the previously-established end time. Improved remote DVR management  from the Web (myverizon.com), mobile (DVR manager apps for Blackberry, Android, Apple, Palm and Windows Mobile platforms), and other STBs in the home. Improvements to DVR series managements and rescheduling logic that allow the DVR to better handle duplicate recordings.   Going forward, the FiOS product management team is also giving the community team access to their test track business customers, a FiOS business focus group. We’re working with the FiOS product management team on ways to integrate this focus group into similar product tie-ins on the Verizon Community, similar to the 1.9 Sneak Peek, so we can continue the close collaboration and customer insight. A True Engagement Community One of the most exciting areas has been the way programs such as the Idea Exchange and the Sneak Peek have increased levels of engagement with the Verizon Community. When the Idea Exchange first launched, our Community Leaders (CLs) grabbed onto it and started moderating the ideas, letting us know when they saw duplicates or customer questions needing attention. This was not a role we asked them to play, but they picked it up on their own as this new customer insight mechanism gained momentum. In addition, we have been seeing a lot of community “newbies” move from being lurkers to registered community members. Since our original community is a peer-to-peer support community, these customers may not have felt that they had anything to contribute to those technical discussions. However, anyone can contribute an idea, comment on another customer’s idea, or simply leave a vote. This has really helped fuel community growth and interest across our customer base. Results Since launch at the end of July 2010, we have seen the following results:   Over 1400 ideas submitted  Over 200 ideas are “in progress” throughout Verizon Already, 16 ideas have been implemented by the Verizon product teams     Additionally, the Idea Exchange itself has been rapidly growing:   107% growth in comments 403% growth in votes 555% growth in visitors   In summary, the Verizon Community has now become fully engrained in our product management processes. It has helped Verizon get closer to the customer, gain insights to help us take action, look for issues needing attention (early detection), and improve customer retention. We are truly changing the way we do business as a result of direct customer feedback from the Verizon Community!
Company: Verizon Residential Categories: Most Innovative Social Customer Program  Entered by: Becky Carroll (beckyc) Community Name: Verizon  URL: community.verizon.com   As digital entertainment and connected applications continu... See more...
Company: Verizon Residential Categories: Most Innovative Social Customer Program  Entered by: Becky Carroll (beckyc) Community Name: Verizon  URL: community.verizon.com   As digital entertainment and connected applications continue to generate excitement for consumers, more and more of them are looking for answers about today’s enabling technologies.     In response, we’ve added enhancements to the Verizon Community that include a new area called Verizon Room to Learn (http://roomtolearn.verizon.com).     Room to Learn is an educational site that offers relevant tips, shortcuts, and online workshops on hot topics such as apps and gadgets. It also links users to social media sites where they can share their practical application and experience with their social circle.   Tech Made Simple Verizon Room to Learn focuses on popular home networking and home entertainment topics that include introductions to digital entertainment, wireless networking, making sense of 3D TV, and organizing digital media. Note that these are not workshops on how to use Verizon products and services; rather, they are designed to help people participate more fully in a digital lifestyle. The topics are all around the core of what Verizon offers with our products and services, and customers and non-customers alike can find value in learning more about how to make their technology work for them – instead of the other way around. Industry Experts Contribute Room to Learn also features weekly posts written by industry expert Alfred Poor, who has contributed for over 20 years to technology publications that include PC World, PC Magazine, Family PC and Computer Shopper.  His posts complement the Room to Learn workshops and articles, and they provide fresh perspectives on timely topics. In addition to these weekly posts, Alfred regularly participates in discussions about these topics with our members directly in the forums.   Results Verizon Room to Learn has been successfully integrated into the Verizon Community. According to the latest Room to Learn metrics, visits and unique visitors are up over 100 percent from last October, registrations are up nearly 50 percent, and the email opt-in rate is up almost 40 percent. Product click-throughs are also up nearly 100 percent from last year, indicating that customers like what they are seeing – and want to find out more about how Verizon can help them live their digital lifestyle.  
Company: Rogers Communications Categories: Best New Community (Launched after June 1, 2010) Entered by: Eryn Billings (erynbillings) Community Name: Rogers Community Forums URL: communityforums.rogers.com Launched: August 4, 2010 ... See more...
Company: Rogers Communications Categories: Best New Community (Launched after June 1, 2010) Entered by: Eryn Billings (erynbillings) Community Name: Rogers Community Forums URL: communityforums.rogers.com Launched: August 4, 2010 Rogers Communications Inc.'s new Community Forums should win the Lithy Award because we are proud of the impact our community is making, and how our social customer strategies are changing the game for our company.   On August 4th, 2010 we launched Rogers Community Forums with a focus strictly on technical issues and a pilot employee ambassador program. Despite our limited resources, the community sprang to life immediately and was moderated by the help of tech savvy super users in the first three months.   We've now surpassed 20,000 registered community members and look forward to implementing more promotional tactics in the next year and revisiting the scope of our community to expand the topics to include discussions around pricing and devices.   In Rogers RedBoard blog, we heard positive comments such as:     These forums are going to be awesome… I have seen these work for other companies and you get very prompt and helpful responses to your questions. I am glad Rogers is doing it… good work with the video too!!! Nice!!! I love to see Rogers offering more and more ways of getting supoprt. I already like RogersHelp and other folks on Twitter. This is a nice addition. I dont think Bellus offer that.. Way to go!! Well I don’t always support everything rogers does I have been with the company for a number of years.. It’s about time a forums section was opened up.. Well done Happy to hear about the new technical forums Richard. Nice addition to helping Rogers clients