In 2017 I was the Community Manager at Tealium. Tealium encouraged their employees and customers alike to answer questions on their forums. I decided that I needed to throw an awards ceremony to deeply thank all the employees for their hardwork and dedication. The awards ceremony was a huge hit! Below is some of the marketing that was created to promote the awards ceremony plus the results. I hope you enjoy.
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Ladies and Gentlemen, I submit to you the Tealium tale of proving return on investment for your community. It's a story filled with mystery, recognition, education, appreciation, and ultimately … return on investment into the millions of dollars. Let's begin...
Once Upon a Time ...
... Tealium Executives, and the Tealium organization in general, were not properly educated regarding the return on investment that community and online documentation could yield. For you see the Tealium Learning Community not only contains forums, where customers can ask questions, but it also holds all of the organization's documentation as well.
An education campaign needed to be conducted on how the Tealium Learning Community not only influences prospects to sign with Tealium, but also how Community can deflect customer service issues with great documentation and posts in the Forums.
“What ever shall I do?!” exclaimed the Community Manager for Tealium, Kathleen Jo?
She thought and she thought then one day an idea came to her...
“Why don't we hold an awards ceremony!” Kathleen Jo proclaimed.
And with that her journey began.
First, let's define the story that needed to be told
A presentation had to be built to help educate not only the Executives but the rest of Team Tealium on Community's ability to both acquire and retain customers. Thus, Kathleen Jo set out to create tttthhhhhheeeeee bestssssstststs presentation ever. The presentation had to include:
- Education on HOW the Tealium Learning Community and documentation can simultaneously acquire and retain customers
- Recognition for each individual who worked so hard on a wide variety of community/documentation related tasks
- Appreciation for all the hard work the entire company pours into the Tealium Learning Community each and every single day
- Mystery had to be an element as well to entice the organization to attend a never, before seen awards ceremony
- Return On Investment (ROI) stats, of course, were a must, for what else counts more than proving that all the hard work has paid off
Next, defining the educational points
Next Kathleen Jo wrote down all the elements that she needed to EDUCATE her beloved Tealium on. The following points came to mind:
- #DidYouKnow Community can help with both Acquisition and Retention?
Not everyone knows that this is even possible, so this definitely should be included. - How does community acquire customers?
All tall tales set aside ... show me the numbers! Prove to me that this fairy tale is true! - How does community retain customers?
Crystal balls and ears of newt can only go so far. Explain to me how deflection is calculated; show me how customers can find their own answers all while saving your organization money. - How much money does this amount to for both acquisition and retention?
And now that you've mentioned money, how much did you say we made/saved in total?
Next, the recognition
In order to recognize the many individuals who have contributed so much to the Tealium Learning Community, categories had to be defined around the many different types of tasks that exist for community/documentation. Only after defining all the work that community and online documentation demands could individuals be rewarded for all their hard work! The following categories for the awards ceremonies were thus defined:
- The Documentor - This employee updates and creates valuable public-facing documentation.
- The Resourcer - This employee uses TLC as a sales tool by referring prospects to the wealth of information available.
- The Submitter - This employee submits suggestions for improving our official documentation, making sure that our docs are up-to-date and accurate.
- The Deflector - This employee engages with customers in the forums to answer questions and provide solutions.
- The Referrer - This employee uses TLC in Zendesk as a retention tool for current customers, referring them to documentation or discussions to answer their support inquiries.
- The Knowledge Builder - This employee contributes to the tribal knowledge of Team Tealium by creating internal documentation for employees.
Then rules were established and prizes defined. Trophies were procreated and Amazon gift cards added to give more incentive to attend the ceremony.
Don't forget the invitation to the ball!
Like any good fairy tale, there has to be an invitation to the ball. Kathleen Jo thought and thought, “How am I going to entice Tealium Employees to come to an awards ceremony that they have never heard of before?”
The answer… Add a little mystery with a touch of FUN to the invitation ...
First, create an invitation that was so ridiculously SHINY that no one could resist its charm. Please see below for the invitation:
Second, let everyone know that almost ANYBODY could win an award. And it was true. Almost anyone could win. BUT, you have to attend the awards ceremony to find out who did win.
Third, continue to promote the ceremony with time sensitive queues like, “Only one week left until The Tealies! Who will win 'The Knowledge Builder' award?! You'll have to attend to find out! See you soon!”
And now let's build the presentation
With the invitation sent and the talking points defined, it was now time to build the presentation. To prevent the tale from getting stale, the entire presentation had to have a good mix of return on investment, sprinkled with education, a dabbling of recognition with an IMMENSE amount of appreciation/gratitude strewn throughout the awards ceremony.
Beginning the presentation with an educational point first then rolling straight into ROI kept the fairy tale lively but also educated Team Tealium with an amazing number that most did not think was possible. Below are the beginning slides for The Tealies 2017 ceremony starting with acquisition education, then rolling straight into return on investment for acquisition. Take a look:
The Tealium Learning Community used to be a closed community, meaning one had to register for, then login in order to view documentation and forums. Because registering gave prospects a particular role on the Community, Kathleen Jo was able to work the data backwards and realize that certain prospects were definitely influenced by the Tealium Learning Community's documentation and forums.
On average the prospects that did sign and become customers signed 3-4 months after registering for the Tealium Learning Community. The average number of member logins for these prospects turned customers was 34 and the average number of page views was over 100.
Kathleen Jo also needed to answer the question HOW does the Tealium Learning Community accomplish $5.3 million dollars in acquisition influence. She explained this by presenting the 5 C's.
- Convince
- Commitment
- Confidence
- Comfort
- Community
The attached slides explain these 5 C's.
In the above slide Kathleen Jo explained that the recency and frequency of forums posts answered and the constant posting of documentation showcased Tealium's commitment to support, thus helping with acquisition.
The above slide is a quote from a Tealium Employee talking about a prospect turned customer. The company's name had to be omitted for legal reasons, but hopefully the gist of the quote demonstrates how confidence can be built with consistent documentation posts and constant replies to customers' inquiries.
Again, another Tealium Employee talking about a prospect turned customer. As before, the company’s name had to be omitted for legal reasons but, the meaning of the quote is clear. Community can create comfort within a prospect when all the right elements are in place.
And the final C, which stands for Community, talks about the connection between customers that is created when transparency is fostered.
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Well that was a nice bit of education, but where are the awards??!?! I'm glad you asked. After another subtle reminder of the acquisition ROI came the awards:
And off to the awards ceremony! Please note that the names of the winners have been removed for legal reasons. The slides had animations so Kathleen Jo presented the 3rd Place winners with their trophies first, followed by 2nd Place, then 1st Place, then ending with the Honorable Mentions. This way the excitement and the mystery of the fairy tale was maintained throughout the entire awards ceremony.
(Round of applause for the Documentor winners!!!!)
(Another round of applause for the Submitter winners!!)
Rounds of applause were encouraged at this point, and throughout, to increase engagement and continue the excitement as Tealium wandered through the rest of the tale ...
But the awards ceremony wasn’t over. There was still another half of the tale to be told. This other half involved Retention. Again, return on investment for retention followed by education was in order. This half of the ceremony started, again, with a number. See below:
Team Tealium was not aware of how support costs could make or break a company, so an explanation with informative graphics had to be introduced. The following slides explained the support cost tale:
As questions increase, so do costs! And the idea of indirect deflection, or a many-to-one support model, was introduced to Tealium.
Another concept that was new to Team Tealium was the idea of crowdsourcing support. This idea allowed some of Tealium’s most enthusiastic customers, or Super Users, to answer questions on behalf of Tealium. In exchange, Tealium Experts are given special privileges like free tickets to Digital Velocity, a sandbox to use outside of their normal work accounts, and exclusive access to enhancements before any other customers are allowed to see them.
And now we get to the part of the fairy tale where ROI needs to be proven. In other words, crowdsourcing support and indirect deflection add up to $1.8M in deflection savings.
And the tale continues also describing how some customers prefer self-service. In fact, one customer was so satisfied that they decided to let Team Tealium know about it. Again, the name of the customer has been removed for legal reasons.
And finally, Employee training. The Community has the ability to train not only customers, but employees as well.
And now we are off to the Retention awards ceremony! Again … a subtle reminder about the ROI for retention ...
Note that, again, the names of the winners have been removed for legal reasons. Also, like before, the slides had animations so Kathleen Jo presented the 3rd Place winners with their trophies first, followed by 2nd Place, then 1st Place, then ending with the Honorable Mentions. Again, mystery and excitement achieved!
(Round of applause for the Deflector winners!!!!)
(Another round of applause for the Referrer winners!!)
Again, Kathleen Jo encouraged Team Tealium at this point to give a huge round of applause to the Retention winners.
Every tale has an unsung hero. One that is not always given his/hers full due. In our Tealium Tale, however, this was not going to be allowed. There was one last award to be handed out. An award that was not even announced during the promotion of The Tealies. This heroine was absolutely instrumental in establishing workflow and documentation guidelines for Tealium and most certainly deserved the recognition for all her hard work. Again, mystery and excitement achieved!
We cannot end this tale without, of course, understanding the full impact of community's return on investment. So one slide to illustrate the impact...
… And then a big THANK YOU slide to all the winners of the 2017 Tealies awards. Because why else would Team Tealium have made and saved $7.1M? It's because of the Tealium Community.
The Results
- Educated Team Tealium on the benefits of Community. ✔
- Recognized individuals for their contributions to the Tealium Learning Community. ✔
- Kept the mystery and fun ALIVE during the entire ceremony. ✔
- Appreciated the most prolific contributors to the Tealium Learning Community. ✔
- Proved Return on Investment for the Community. ✔
The moral of the story
Proving return on investment for your Community can be an extremely rewarding experience for any Community Manager. Use your imagination and remember to have fun!
And they all lived happily ever after ... The End
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Some More Images from the Ceremony
