I've seen alot of web hosting sites that offer community forums for thier customers to discuss general questions, web development, and even general support.

I can see that offering forums to customers can keep them up to date and can be a great place to help each other out.

I can also see that the forums would have to be heavily moderated to keep unwanted posts out.

I'm curious about what everything thinks about this and what their experience has been.

Well for years we operated with out a forum ...... one client came along and suggested that we set one up said it would be great for the new clients ....... so we did ...... a support forum with other information .......... guess what ........ 3 clients signed up ..... one posted a hello and it has not been used since then

We will be taking down the ghost towns in the near future .... lol

We just recently setup a forum on our site and its pretty dead still but the customers still say they like it for updates and such. Im sure it will get busy over time just not at the moment.

Jeff

Ours is dead too! Like really...!

Andrew

Mine as well. Kind of feel stupid setting it up.

Mine was very active at first, over 300 reg members at it and over 2000 posts but it is going pretty slow now.

Its good IF its active, if not, it normally makes you look worse I think

"Our users have posted a total of 9074 articles
We have 812 registered users"

We have been using a forum for over 4 years i guess.. the stats above are from a fresh re-installed a few months ago. It has cut down our help tickets dramatically. I believe we went from 80 help tickets/day to 40 with the forum.. So it has been very good for cost cutting aswell as keeping everyone informed. I still think a small percentage use the forum (under 25%), but we have been informing people about the forum being used as a forum in the welcome email... Everyone who uses it likes it.. so its just a matter of letting people know they have access to this tool.

As with everything we have tons of data for pre and post decision analysis.. so if anyone has any detailed questions on implementations of things and the numbers behind them, just ask.

And just to calrify these are support forums and are used mostly for that.. its not a forum just to be a forum.. its a support tool for our customers, nothing more and nothing less.

Forums are pretty useless as most customers are not interested in signing up. We only keep ours open for company announcements and the general chatter that goes on between a few of the registered members.

The real question is not should I have a forum, but which forum I should set up in order to be properly indexed by Google and attract more visitors and would-be customers.

I am not sure about google-indexing.. as i said the only purpose of our forum is to be a resource for the customers.. at this time (and for the past year or two) we are barely supporting the demand that we have.. so i don't think we had any need for anything like that for a while (last time we ran ads was in 2002 i believe).

We get one support ticket per client in the first 24 hrs. of setting up an account. Most of the time that question is answered in the email that was sent to them with the account information.

After that we most likly do not here from them again till its time to renew. Then its just a conformation that they have made the payment. :)

Are we doing something wrong? ;)

Originally posted by Imago
The real question is not should I have a forum, but which forum I should set up in order to be properly indexed by Google and attract more visitors and would-be customers. vBulletin does that just fine. WHT has an Archiving mod, and it works wonders with Google..

Agreed - I notice the WHT archive when I google around for stuff a bit. So the mod is helping keep their name out there.

The most credible sales tool are your customers. If you can make a forum work to create a sense of community with your customers then you have a powerful sales tool on your hands.

An active customer forum (if made SE friendly) will also help bring in free traffic from search engines.

I've seen a few hosts do a brilliant job with a forum.

I agree a forum can do wonders for both clients & the host itself.

Customers & Staff memebers of the Host can join & communicate on a not always business related issues. Which allows the Staff memebers to get to know the customers more with out spending 1 & 1 time together and communicating via other methods.

The forum would be a great way for the Community Members, Clients, and Staff Members to communicate on numerous topics and get others involved at the same time that might have the same interests.

Thanks
- James

Our forums are the second greatest thing that ever happened to us. We have a very strong and active community of 278 members. We just reached 10000 posts today. It's an absolute must have for us.

We just integrated them into our website too, so now our products are constantly one click away whenever our users are in the forums.

You have to emphasize the importance of the forum and assist interaction. It works.

Our isn't exactly the biggest, but in the short time we've had it, we've been successful. We've instilled some real loyalty and community spirt- which is great.

Our forums were quite slow for awhile - I mostly used them as a means to notify clients of things and for pre-sale questions.

I've now added links to virus information and email hoaxes and over the past month activitey has been picking up. We finally got a user who is really into forum posting - so she got the ball rolling for us :)

Bottom line, I think customers like to see forums. It gives potential clients the chance to ask pre sales questions and possibly find thier answer. It's great for company announcements if nothing else. Overall, even if your forum is dead, I'd keep it around.

Originally posted by NovaW
The most credible sales tool are your customers. If you can make a forum work to create a sense of community with your customers then you have a powerful sales tool on your hands.
Exactly, a forum like that is an incredible selling tool. Anyone who says otherwise is clueless or simply jealous.

Yes, I speak from experience -> HTTPme.com. :)

Originally posted by Chad McCan
Our forums are the second greatest thing that ever happened to us. We have a very strong and active community of 278 members. We just reached 10000 posts today. It's an absolute must have for us.
Good for you. :gthumb:

Aussie Bob,

I am not going to use my forums as the main part of my site as you did, so what can I do to promote their use and activity in them? Also I would like to avoid using them for support, will this help or hurt do you think?

Originally posted by Jhorra
I am not going to use my forums as the main part of my site as you did, so what can I do to promote their use and activity in them?
Have the Forum link easily seen from your main page. Maybe incorporate that into your sales page etc. Also send out a monthly newsletter to your clients, reminding them that there's a forum etc. Things like that will help. :)
Also I would like to avoid using them for support, will this help or hurt do you think?
Forum support is good, IMO, and it's good for your clients and perspective clients. I could write for pages, about the benefits of forum support, but the benefits far outweigh the negatives, if you run your business correctly.

Remember, a forum greatly increases your level of accountability to your clients. So if you treat your clients well, and run your business well, a forum is a benefit for you. If you run your business poorly, then your forum will turn on you and devour you, and become a liability.

I've seen this happen to a few hosts - they shutdown their forum because it was hurting them. If only they took the care to properly run their business, they would not loose an asset such as a community forum, out of fear and total incompetance.

Jhorra,

And also think about incorporating a "Knowledge Base" into your forum. Have links to live demos and articles etc. Then you direct folks to the forum, to see the Knowledge Base articles and demos. :)

My biggest concern with forum support is quick responses. I don't have quite the staff I would like, so I worry that a thread may sit there unnoticed. With our support ticket system however, we are alerted every time a ticket comes in.

Originally posted by Jhorra
My biggest concern with forum support is quick responses. I don't have quite the staff I would like, so I worry that a thread may sit there unnoticed. With our support ticket system however, we are alerted every time a ticket comes in.
You could also be alerted each time a new thread is opened in your Support Forum, much the same way as your ticket system.

I Would think Forums would be a Big Help to a Hosting Company.

Why?
- Updates
- KB <URL removed>
- Pre-Sales Questions
- Forums for Clients to Talk to other Clients
- Help Questions for Public


Those are Just Some.

<<< Signatures need to be set up in your profile. >>>

Originally posted by Aussie Bob
You could also be alerted each time a new thread is opened in your Support Forum, much the same way as your ticket system.

Does it look that bad if I start off with an Invision board? If I skin it and make it look decent?

Very slow for us. Can definately be accredited to the fact that we are a very new company, however, they are there if anyone needs them. It's not hurting anything if they just sit there...an inactive forum takes up, what?, 3-4 MB of database space? If not much less...

Originally posted by Jhorra
Does it look that bad if I start off with an Invision board? If I skin it and make it look decent?
IMO, start with VB and you'll never need to change over from a free board to VB down the track. :)

Originally posted by PylonSystems
Very slow for us. Can definately be accredited to the fact that we are a very new company, however, they are there if anyone needs them. It's not hurting anything if they just sit there...an inactive forum takes up, what?, 3-4 MB of database space? If not much less...
A dead forum just looks bad, from a sales angle. New perspective client sees your site, checks out your forum and sees no action. Goes away thinking that there's no action here. It looks bad.

I'll let you in on a marketing secret - people attract people. That's why the HTTPme model was so successful. Someone comes to the site for the first time, and they see a HEAP of action in the community. They see a bunch of other people interacting, and think to themselves, "well, if they're here, there must be something good here".

You can get a heap of posts going yourself - create a Knowledge Base with heaps of articles etc. That will give your forum an asset in that it holds information, for your clients to benefit from. If they have a support issue that can be solved by them reading one of those Forum Knowledge base articles, then make sure you send them that way. You can probably get 50 to 60 threads just from that.

I'm using an Invision Board - it's decent - but I've been unable to locate good skins for it (unless one of you know where I might find some?) So vB might be the way to go for a professional look.

And with regards to using the forum for support....
I clearly state in my TOS that the forum is a Community Support Forum - and NOT official means of support. This is also stated in the welcome email. Sure we do answer questions there - but it's mainly for users to help other users and learn from each other for general usage/tips n tricks.

I use Invision Power Board and use it primarily as a resource site for clients. I post announcements of server maintainance and upgrades as well as some basic help information.

Most of our clients usually ask questions of us via the Support Desk although a couple have used the forums.

What's the cheapest route to go to skin my vB board? I went ahead and bit the bullet and bought the leased license. I want to have it different from the default look, but don't need it fully customized at this point. Just some minor modifications.

Its good IF its active, if not, it normally makes you look worse I think

well said.....

My forums are dead :(

We have over 1000 mambers on our forums now, and it's only been going since mid-december.

When we started up, as we are a free webhost, we hadn't implenmented any signup system, and people used the forum to get an account, now, howver, we use a real signup system, and we get people to register on the forums for announcements ect, well, they have to join, othewise they don't get the link to signup.

We have a real community spirit, and run forum competition, games, and other stuff to keep people coming back, and all of our staff are geared up to do it.

We run an invision board, and IMO, it's better than vB.. and don't see us changing in the future.

Long story short.. a forum is what you make out of it, you need features to keep your customers coming back, eg announcements, updates, support, upgrades, competitions ect.


M2Ys4U, iNeedHosting.net

To promote our forums, we put a link in the sidebar of our control panel and commonly referece posts from it in support ticket responses.

Forums are great for user-user support and for potential clients to get a feel for the type of business you run.

All that's very nice, however that wasn't our principle concern. I noticed that as soon as our forums launched last June that our sales increased as a result.

This screenshot (http://www.hosting-unlimited.net/forum_integration.gif) of a graph plots our average daily revenue from last June/July (no figures though, use the graph to view the correlation). The forum integration took place at point 4 on the x axis.

We waited until we had several hundred clients before mentioning the forum in our quarterly newsletter. It's tricky to get a forum up and running but once it is it pays dividends.

That was our experience anyway.

Kevin

Originally posted by Jhorra
What's the cheapest route to go to skin my vB board? I went ahead and bit the bullet and bought the leased license. I want to have it different from the default look, but don't need it fully customized at this point. Just some minor modifications.
Just customise it from the admin panel of VB. The HTTPme forum is not a skin, and was just customised from that panel.