Peers Over Beers - Community Experts Podcast

Chris is pushing to get more headcount for his community. He presents to Michael is situation on how to create a business plan to get headcount. Michael talks in detail about how to do this.

1. Strategy - Case Deflection - Help the support team to create a case deflection strategy - Increase brand awareness
2. Growth Plan - Operation Effectiveness - Companies shift their smaller important customers to a lower cost - Tiering support strategy
3. Competitive analysis (What does the outcome look like)
4. Estimate of the cost
5. ROI - If I get this, the you get that

Show Notes

Michael talks about ROI for a Support Community. He put together an Google sheet to help with ROI of community.

Check it out here

What is Peers Over Beers - Community Experts Podcast?

B2B Community Strategist Chris Detzel is your host for this fun and straight shooting podcast for enterprise community leaders / managers and digital savvy professionals. With easy and natural inquisitive banter, your host will tackle hard issues facing community leaders and managers in their day-to-day struggles, and yes, sometimes over a beer. From starting new communities, digitally transforming enterprise culture, moderation, and globalization techniques are all up for discussion.

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Timestamp Speaker Transcript
00:00.00 cdetzel Take it away.
00:00.00 Michael Sandoval Hello and welcome to another episode of peers over beers I'm 1 of your hosts michael sandoal good afternoon chris and I am trying very hard not to do the silly giggle but now I just tell everybody. That's what I'm trying to do and here I go I can't even help it.
00:03.90 cdetzel And I'm Chris Detzel
00:10.20 cdetzel Ah
00:19.30 Michael Sandoval I know I just rolled into it. It's ridiculous. Ah
00:34.14 cdetzel Yeah
00:38.96 Michael Sandoval Actually yes I did and this is kind of weird. so it's Pittsburgh so I was really interested by the taste of the city water. It was like minerally, and I think it's from clearly from the river but it was really goods I kept drinking the water now I make sense because ah ah
00:48.79 cdetzel Um
00:57.53 cdetzel Yeah
00:57.93 Michael Sandoval Ah bourbon distilleries are from that area so we did a There's a place called um
01:05.17 cdetzel Yeah
01:17.79 Michael Sandoval Whole concept that New York Pizza tastes better because of the water. But then I go New York Water Really? Okay
01:22.11 cdetzel I don't know about that I was good man my ah son went to a two week camp with his cousins so he's off and going and um
01:34.90 Michael Sandoval Um
01:41.20 cdetzel Oh yeah
01:44.50 Michael Sandoval Wow.
01:55.18 Michael Sandoval Interesting.
01:59.68 cdetzel So this week's theme is the Olympic games or something like that. So I'm sure they'll have a lot of different Olympic type stuff so I'll be running around all that stuff you know and I pushed him to make sure he wears sunscreen every day twice a day you know because he's pretty fair
02:01.34 Michael Sandoval Oh that's right.
02:18.26 cdetzel We'll see what he what happens when he comes back. But yeah
02:18.66 Michael Sandoval How begin like bikes. Well
02:32.27 cdetzel Yeah.
02:36.99 Michael Sandoval Like going to a place where you don't know anybody you don't know the kids and ah okay
02:38.85 cdetzel Well his cousins are going 2 of his cousins. So and he'll be in the room with 1 of them all day every day so you know are you know hanging with him the whole time. So that helps he went last year for a week you know and so they they all put they all 3 so he has 2 cousins as going 1 ne's growing 1
02:51.29 Michael Sandoval Yeah.
02:57.86 Michael Sandoval Just.
02:58.85 cdetzel Boy and you know he was like they they wanted to go 2 weeks and we're like ah okay so we let him go yeah
03:07.64 Michael Sandoval That's awesome. Well
03:20.27 cdetzel Yeah.
03:26.20 cdetzel Um
03:33.63 cdetzel Yeah
03:36.87 Michael Sandoval And so I thought oh let's talk about business case that sounds like fun. Ah.
03:38.52 cdetzel Yeah
03:53.58 Michael Sandoval Um.
03:56.48 cdetzel Make sure those questions get answered I've got to make sure some of these blogs get written I got to make sure these webinar programs are put together I got to make sure you know I'm interacting engaging with customers make sure some of these it issues that they're having is solved and and then I've got to go ah present.
04:10.38 Michael Sandoval Ah
04:15.14 cdetzel You know how community is doing why community is not what's my strategy for the next six months and all these things you know that eventually become too much right? So you know I I kind of presented to my boss the other day I was like hey look is there a way that we can get.
04:22.67 Michael Sandoval Thank you.
04:30.56 cdetzel People for community because you know I'm starting to get overwhelmed with all these things that are going on. They're good stuff. But yeah I mean some of things you get to stop doing but none of these things I can stop doing right? You know it's just part of the community stuff right? Yeah
04:40.72 Michael Sandoval No
04:49.70 cdetzel So Yeah and he was like yeah just put a business case together and you know he said you know look just kind of consists of you know
05:12.20 Michael Sandoval Um
05:25.85 cdetzel Oh really.
05:30.40 Michael Sandoval So I wrote down like I wrote down some buckets and we'll talk about each of the buckets. So 1 is on strategy. We'll go back to that it makes that's a nebulous term I would argue that all this is strategy. But anyway 2 is growth plan. We'll go back to that in a second 3 which you can add or not.
05:32.18 cdetzel Okay.
05:40.80 cdetzel Sure.
05:49.65 Michael Sandoval If you wanted to but it's competitive analysis. Um
06:13.16 cdetzel Okay.
06:21.22 cdetzel Yeah
06:27.11 Michael Sandoval This idea of the strategy and we had talked about how for your case
06:34.35 cdetzel Um.
06:45.15 Michael Sandoval Help the call Center create a deflectionary type of strategy to support team Fair Okay
06:49.53 cdetzel Yeah
07:04.70 Michael Sandoval Ah
07:08.32 cdetzel Kind of like a call center but they're not getting a bunch calls or anything like that. Yep.
07:10.21 Michael Sandoval Ah
07:27.56 cdetzel Um
07:28.10 Michael Sandoval To a lower cost support model right? and then um
07:40.77 Michael Sandoval Yeah
07:47.48 cdetzel Megger.
07:58.70 Michael Sandoval Is is the marker could be 1 of the positive markers of the brand right? So I know he kind of developed that somehow technically tos talking about that and kind of like 3 nice little buckets. Very simple right? Words some research points that I'm sure you can find without a problem.
08:16.75 cdetzel Yep.
08:17.67 Michael Sandoval And then this idea of growth plan which you have done before right? So the growth plan again comes in a couple phases 1 is going to be the initial ah upfront cost. That's a cost. We'll talk about it to drive content then you're going to drive view.
08:37.60 cdetzel Yeah.
08:37.63 Michael Sandoval Viewership and membership and then you're going to have a sustained a self-sustained model in which Seo will drive your market reach very simple stuff and again 1 I can almost see that in the slide very easy and then i. Ah
09:15.84 cdetzel Um.
09:29.51 cdetzel Support case. Let's say.
09:34.55 Michael Sandoval And how many you do in a day and then I take those views and multiply it by 5 because I figure you 1 person is probably going to see that content piece 5 times and then multiply that times the cost of 1 call and a sense Now you're getting the delta variant between how much you can. Help a customer and how much you will ah and and mind you um um I know you say So Okay
10:00.48 cdetzel You gonna write this out and tell me send it.
10:11.19 cdetzel Yeah.
10:12.98 Michael Sandoval Because if you can. But if you can budget within this cost then your cost per answer is going to go really low. So how's this nice little analysis for you and then that is that becomes the estimate and then your cost is going to be. You know you you know and may be speaking a little bit too much and.
10:29.65 cdetzel Okay.
10:32.14 Michael Sandoval Kind of like wooh. There's a lot of there's a lot of stuff Mike this is where I would almost put on a whiteboard and kind of show it but in a sense of spreadsheet begins. The the cost model and all you're going to add on top of that is ah is the cost of the people you need to do it against the ah.
10:34.14 cdetzel So yeah.
10:45.60 cdetzel Yet.
10:50.69 Michael Sandoval Cost of your organization and what you don't have probably is how much you know your yearly licenses are and server cost models and stuff like that. But um
11:20.73 cdetzel Yep.
11:26.47 Michael Sandoval And we will be able to support this number these number of customers and clearly that is going to be more than what they are doing today and that's an easy estimate to do so make sense. Yeah
11:37.21 cdetzel Should put that on an excel spreadsheet or at least a sheet google sheets share it over. No this. It's good to talk about and and I think that's is important but I also think put it on the Google sheet you know because.
11:44.31 Michael Sandoval I Can almost see all this ah as a quick bottle.
11:52.13 Michael Sandoval Oh Google Sheet That's a good idea like right now like pulling up a Google sheet.
11:56.14 cdetzel And just share it to me and then what we could do Michael if if you do that is shared out on. You know our put it in our notes is a shareable thing where they don't edit it. But at least they can see it I think it'd be really awesome.
12:03.10 Michael Sandoval On on. Yeah yeah.
12:10.80 Michael Sandoval Yeah I think we' be pretty cool. Yeah no I can just use my own cap. Ah
12:12.48 cdetzel They have Google sheets at your bank or.
12:21.20 cdetzel Okay
12:28.44 Michael Sandoval Yeah
12:58.71 cdetzel Um
13:02.50 Michael Sandoval And all
13:20.30 cdetzel Yeah
13:35.73 cdetzel Yeah
13:38.70 Michael Sandoval That's fundamental Ofly what you're doing and the rest is and then it's kind of hopefully it's becomes a no brainer. They'll have questions like well these are all estimates you know? Yes
13:57.10 cdetzel Right.
13:57.11 Michael Sandoval It's still a better deal right? So use. But that's the way I kind of throw that like okay then cut my estimates by half That's a huge you know
14:12.77 cdetzel Do you think that works I mean if you have you has that ever worked to you like to your advantage. Okay
14:16.24 Michael Sandoval Yes
14:42.16 cdetzel Um
14:51.42 Michael Sandoval 25 I mean buys a quarter. In other words
14:57.20 cdetzel Yeah.
15:10.43 Michael Sandoval Pretend ninety percent of what I'm saying is false ten percent just a ten percent increase in any of these channels I read I replied it back to how we measure our assets and our profitability and it was still higher than that of what they would get in a physical.
15:20.57 cdetzel Um
15:27.85 Michael Sandoval Ah
15:45.97 cdetzel So give me a person. Ah.
15:53.69 cdetzel Yeah.
16:00.30 cdetzel Who.
16:04.48 Michael Sandoval If they don't buy that part the rest of your calculation is not going to work because you're going to be fighting a religious discussion about hoping online.
16:08.38 cdetzel Doesn't matter. But if I I believe that if I could do what you just said which I get a figure out how to do that? Um
16:17.46 Michael Sandoval Um.
16:25.53 cdetzel They're already for it. They just want a business case to do it. You know so they can go to the board and say this is why we need it.
16:27.38 Michael Sandoval Yeah
16:33.96 cdetzel Um
16:46.60 Michael Sandoval Support strategies. Go a long way and so he will probably say here as an area where we're gonna help strategically increase our resource footprint. Um
16:56.30 cdetzel That's exactly what it wants to do Yeah
17:04.86 Michael Sandoval Just.
17:10.31 cdetzel Has really worked and there seems to be a lot of interest in it and and it's been very successful so we want to invest in this now I had to ask but still you know? Okay
17:18.54 Michael Sandoval Yep.
17:23.31 Michael Sandoval Yeah
17:27.99 cdetzel Ah
17:36.23 cdetzel Listen. Absolutely.
17:41.51 Michael Sandoval It's around content. Absolutely right? But there's 2 sides of content 1 is on creation and 1 is on moderation that's kind of over here 2 you're going to need especially in growth mode. You're going to need a project manager or method of project managing so that.
17:46.77 cdetzel Yeah
18:01.80 Michael Sandoval New capabilities are just scheduled and done and 3 you're gonna have to have access to development resources and so that's.
18:10.88 cdetzel The way I kind of see development resources Michael is more of a third party you know hiring a consultant consultants that can do that so just budget of x number of dollars to go help you know
18:16.60 Michael Sandoval Absolutely.
18:30.10 Michael Sandoval Yeah
18:30.53 cdetzel Docs and things like that with Enterprise search and there's a big ah um
18:56.11 Michael Sandoval Ah
19:06.87 cdetzel It's my push for us to integrate into. Ah um
19:33.47 Michael Sandoval On Gap yup.
19:45.23 cdetzel Um
20:08.57 Michael Sandoval Hey.
20:20.73 cdetzel And inside this portal thing and if a customer doesn't come back or person doesn't come back to do a case. That's a hard case deflection because they didn't come back for x number of hours right? So it could be 8 hours 12 Whatever then that's the way I would kind of set that up.
20:36.30 Michael Sandoval That's interesting.
20:39.53 cdetzel Is we started doing that over at imperva. Ah right when I left it was done right? and I was like damn it I really wanted to say how this started you know it's in a phased approach so you can't do everything at once right
20:41.63 Michael Sandoval Um.
20:51.53 Michael Sandoval Yeah.
20:55.85 cdetzel Technological problems that you run into but having a company build all of that off of some type of technology. So in this case Imperva built it off of a technology Salesforce communities. We didn't use communities but it was a technology Salesforce communities that people can search and then hire logic.
21:06.99 Michael Sandoval And.
21:12.33 Michael Sandoval Yeah.
21:15.36 cdetzel Was integrated in a sense into what the search was and the sso. So it just brought that content into salesforce communities so makes sense same thing with Docs and all that kind of stuff. Yeah
21:21.54 Michael Sandoval Yeah to you're you're creating structured structured content students enforcement.
21:31.46 cdetzel Cool thing too is now if you go to and these 2 are open community dot imperva dot com and docs dot impermo dot com so when you go to docs dot andperva dot com and search for let's say a cybersecurity you can. You could just put on the over to the left. You'll see Docs. Or you'll see community so you click on community and see all the community content and that's in a company called zoom zoom zoom info or whatever so their documentation site. So it's pretty cool I mean we did that together I worked with the Docs team and everything else to make all that happen.
21:57.25 Michael Sandoval Yeah
22:05.10 Michael Sandoval Yeah.
22:07.34 cdetzel That's what we need to do and I keep trying to explain that to people I think they get it and but nobody knows what to go do and I'm like to me that will make the biggest impact of you know content right? You know is like um and people will be able to get what they need quickly and all of these things you know because they're.
22:10.97 Michael Sandoval 3
22:25.72 Michael Sandoval So is that your so if I were to stare step your strategy approach. You're saying that um in your content creation mode in your growth mode. This is what you're doing but you want to attach yourself to a centralized knowledge repository.
22:26.62 cdetzel Pulling it good. Yep.
22:41.51 cdetzel Yeah
22:45.20 Michael Sandoval Okay.
22:59.96 cdetzel Then they can search and the content is all there no matter what digital business system you have does that make sense so instead of just creating a case. They go search it or they're put in their they're put in their case and as the case comes up as they're typing you know
23:35.31 Michael Sandoval Well I would I would even think about by the time that rolls out you should start thinking about putting an ai bot on top of that where it starts to search all of your articles including the community and you're having a natural language conversation and it'll be great to kind of throw that through your community. Um
24:01.00 cdetzel Yeah.
24:06.93 cdetzel Yeah.
24:14.31 Michael Sandoval Persona and you can start you know
24:14.92 cdetzel We'll call it the denel we'll call it the detal.
24:32.55 Michael Sandoval Post in the community through the ai conversation.
24:34.96 cdetzel You know what we can't completely got off
24:41.70 Michael Sandoval You always get off. But.
24:50.28 cdetzel Something that I brought up to the the organization. So I have this hashtag community on my slack channel and our ceo our cto everybody follows this this hashtag community channel and so I'm always posting something in this channel and 1 of the things I posted the other day is I went to? um.
24:53.52 Michael Sandoval Um.
25:02.60 Michael Sandoval Um.
25:09.34 cdetzel Ah
25:09.79 Michael Sandoval 3 evening is okay
25:21.33 Michael Sandoval That.
25:28.16 cdetzel 2 ways you can get to turbotax community just type in community turbotax dot com comes right? Ups you can post or whatever or more importantly because we already have that um is you can go in the product you log in and you go search and then you start searching and then it says you still can't find what you're looking for or something. Click on it goes ask the community. You ask the community and then boom you put your deal in there and it posts within like twenty minutes it seems I got an answer like I actually typed in a quote I put in a question about turbotax. Yeah
25:59.70 Michael Sandoval Um
26:08.20 cdetzel Doing it and I was like and then I went to the community and showed them that it was there So I posted that copied it posted it or did a ah voiceover and then posted it on the Hashtag community as like this is what I want to get to in product community This is kind of where the gold is.
26:11.18 Michael Sandoval Honest.
26:21.81 Michael Sandoval Yeah.
26:27.48 cdetzel Right? You know and and then I go I tag the Vp of product because you know he's the 1 who has to actually make that happen. So You know it's dealing with the product right? and and then I said hey venky at some point down the line. We need to try to really push this. And our Ceo goes I Hope it's not too far down the line because this is so powerful. You know
26:50.80 Michael Sandoval Yes
27:06.40 cdetzel But that's where we need to get to if we really care and and if we are really say you know
27:20.90 Michael Sandoval And.
27:24.82 cdetzel You know? Ah why I want to start hearing those conversations in 6 or eight months. Anyways I got a way a little way off. But I think it was good. Good stuff. Yeah yeah.
27:29.95 Michael Sandoval No
27:45.37 cdetzel Um.
27:48.46 Michael Sandoval But I think the whole thought process is that we're creating community out here but eventually we're going to do this over time so that the brand itself is its own community because you've done such a good job of embracing the 2 and it's a single point of entry and because you've built these things.
27:53.74 cdetzel Yeah.
28:08.26 Michael Sandoval Like the consolidated content database the ability for the first moment of of interaction to be through the project itself. You've created those hooks you've you know in a sense you're that's what you're going right? and that it's not that your role goes away what it is is your role becomes more.
28:16.58 cdetzel Yeah. F.
28:27.33 Michael Sandoval Important in the organization. Yeah.
28:28.90 cdetzel yeah yeah yeah I mean it's it's fun to kind of think about these things and then over time what happens is when the the company gets this happened in a perva you know like sometimes you're just not ready for certain things. It's just you want to be ready
28:50.64 Michael Sandoval I.
29:00.25 Michael Sandoval Right? Yeah
29:05.71 cdetzel For it. You know or maybe I'm not a great explainer Sometimes you know I have my weaknesses too So you know it's you know this way you try to hire people I think that are somewhat you know
29:10.90 Michael Sandoval Oh man who I get to? ah.
29:23.94 cdetzel Hired towards that because I'm never I'm going to get somewhat better. But if it's a weakness you're probably not going to be the best at it ever. You know what? I mean that's just part of it.
29:28.63 Michael Sandoval Yeah
29:32.98 cdetzel Yeah.
29:43.71 cdetzel Um
29:47.48 Michael Sandoval Is someone who has that skill set.
30:01.90 cdetzel People you hired you know their strong points are and you and I conquered a bunch of shit you know I mean.
30:04.35 Michael Sandoval Yeah
30:14.67 cdetzel I Am you know like that's.
30:22.57 Michael Sandoval Right? And that's clear. Yes
30:23.33 cdetzel Um
30:37.40 cdetzel Project managers. Yeah I agree and I need somebody like that too. But.
30:42.43 Michael Sandoval Who we anyway. Alas my friend well for that I will say thank you so very much for another wonderful conversation on peers over beers I'm 1 of your hosts Michael sandoval right? have a good 1
30:49.85 cdetzel And I'm Chris Detzel They do.