Customer Service costs can be reduced and customer service levels can be increased utilsing the

Dell Computer operate an online support community where consumers can post the problems they are having with their Dell equipment, as it is likely that other Dell customers have come across the same problem and resolved it, therefore the solution often comes from other customers – creating a self supporting customer community, reducing customer support costs for Dell themselves. Dell do have employees who monitor and provide information on the support forum, but the majority of the knowledge is held within their customer base and this is an ideal situation for them to harness and share the expertise of the customer base.

In addition to the support aspect of the community, there is a potential for creating long term Dell loyal customers, for example, a dell customer may be looking to upgrade, replace or add to their computer equipment they own and rather than going out to the market to learn about new products, they have access to a wide customer base who have hands on experience of the various products, therefore, this community could be used in a product advice or pre-sales capacity. This form of interaction provides Dell with the opportunity to prevent their customers from switching brands for future equipment purchases by taking them out of the sales cycle early. i.e. if Dell have a product which fits and other customers vouch for its capabilities then they do need to look at other manufacturers.

Zonealarm
Zonealarm is a software vendor who manufacture and sell personal firewall’s for PC’s, the entry level version for home users is downloadable free from the internet, over 60million copies have been downloaded. As it is a free product, it would have been too expensive for Zonealarm to build an offline support team with no support revenue, their solution was to setup an online support forum for their customers, where they can provide product support to each other. The online community provides a minimum level of product support and customer service to all customers, ensuring that all customers are able to effectively use their products.