I attended a conference last week on customer experience in telecoms put on by the Telecom Executive Network. I participated in a panel discussion with peers from Yahoo, Best Buy and Orange on how companies are using social media tools like Facebook and Twitter to communicate with customers. However, the discussion also uncovered a number of examples of consumers using the same tools to connect directly with one another and help each other out.
It was an interesting discussion and one that got me thinking about how the internet and has given rise to “Digital Good Samaritans”. We likely all have stories of happening upon an individual in need and giving them a helping hand out of a difficult situation, whether that’s changing a tyre on the roadside or giving directions to a bewildered tourist on the London Tube network. Digital good Samaritans on the other hand rather than being in the right place at the right time often go looking for people in need and use their knowledge and experience to help.
Another panellist at the event from Yahoo! recounted a recent story about a user of their popular service Yahoo! Answers. Yahoo! Answers allows users to post questions on any subject to the Answers website in the hopes that another user will provide an answer to it. The answer provided is then rated and the person providing the answer can build up credibility within the community. Recently a 15 year old Answers user from London built up 2000 “best answer” votes on the service and was posting up to 40 answers per day. This is a person who is not being paid by Yahoo! to do this but is seemingly motivated by goodwill and the buzz of helping others out.
At TalkTalk we also have a group of good Samaritans who spend time on our TalkTalk Members’ Forum. The Members’ Forum is a great source of answers for our customers on everything from how best to configure the technology in their home to updates on what may be happening in their local telephone exchange. The team that manages and moderates the Member’s Forum tells us that we have some customers who post upwards of 50 times per day answering the questions of other customers. Again these customers get no monetary reward for doing this but the help they give to other customers is often invaluable.
While some of us would prefer to deal with our technology issues “the old fashioned way” by asking a mate or calling a tech support line its nice to know that these Digital Good Samaritans are around to help if we need them.
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