You've probably got at least five changes you want to make to your community right? Seemingly simple ones perhaps? But you're stuck in a development queue, don't have the resources right now etc to fix or change them.
Can you relate? A recent post on the IOCMA (International Online Community Management Association) thread landed me in a great discussion about putting forward a business case to improve your community.
In essence there was Justin (his boss is the owner) and me (huge corporate)... both in the same boat.
How do we convince the powers that be that changes need to be made etc when there are more "important" things to do. Read = usually issues associated with revenue.
My points included reminding your company that...
- Visible customer/member dissesion about issues, bugs, lack of improvements and so forth is damaging your brand;
- It be time-consuming (and therefore costly) to improve a damaged brand reputation/sentiment in the community (not to mention regaining reputation is an uphill battle);
- These unresolved issues are increasing your workload. And by not utilising their resources (= you) to their full potential that will impact on your ability to perform/acheive what you had planned for that month/quarter;
- All of which may translate to a loss in revenue.
Another member Fiona from deviantART made the point that it is all about Membership Rentention.
If you don't make the required changes/fixes you will lose members and this directly equates to revenue. So if you can find a way to assign value to your issue this may help get it bumped up the to-do queue.
How do you make a business case for improving and/or fixing issues in your community?
Tuesday, November 4, 2008
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