Podcasts Business Community Signal When Community is on 3 Teams in 5 Years

When Community is on 3 Teams in 5 Years

Published: Oct. 24, 2022, 9:30 a.m.

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As\\xa0Zendesk\\u2019s\\xa0customer base and product offerings have grown, so has its community. The Zendesk community started in 2008, under the support organization, as a space for people to ask and answer questions about using the product. Since then, it has shifted departments multiple times, leading to changes in KPIs and core purpose.

Nicole Saunders, the company\\u2019s director of community, joins the show to explain how she has navigated these challenges. Tune in for her approach on thoughtfully managing change and expectations within your community and inside of your organization.

Patrick and Nicole also discuss:

  • Why the comments are open on Zendesk\\u2019s knowledge base articles
  • You can\\u2019t tell people to contact support in Zendesk\\u2019s community
  • Handing some conversations in the community off to other teams

Big Quotes

Going from scrappy to resourced as your community team grows and develops (04:36):\\xa0\\u201c[While community was part of the support organization,] we were functioning very scrappy, very much like a startup team within a larger organization. \\u2026 Being within [the] integrated marketing organization let us connect to a lot more pieces and parts of the business, which as we built our strategy became increasingly important.\\u201d \\u2013@NicoleinMadison

Participate in the community you serve (14:20):\\xa0\\u201cI\\u2019m always encouraging my team to [step] out of the ticket queue on a regular basis \\u2026 and just wander around [the community] and try to have that same experience as the end users to make sure we\\u2019re not missing anything, make sure that the queue isn\\u2019t keeping us in just a transactional space.\\u201d \\u2013@NicoleinMadison

Why you can\\u2019t tell people to contact support in the Zendesk community (24:58):\\xa0\\u201cWe were getting a lot of people that were just saying, \\u2018You should contact support for this,\\u2019 and what it was doing was discouraging other users from jumping in and trying to help. A lot of these were questions that people could answer for one another, and \\u2026 it was short-circuiting the community conversation.\\u201d \\u2013@NicoleinMadison

The knowledge and value that community can offer (26:17):\\xa0\\u201cYou\\u2019re going to gain so much more out of talking to somebody [in the community] who has done what you are trying to do, than someone who knows what functionality you should use to try to do it. Even the best support agent in the world probably hasn\\u2019t done exactly the thing that you\\u2019re trying to do. There\\u2019s actually a real benefit to talking to other users.\\u201d \\u2013@NicoleinMadison

About Nicole Saunders

In over 12 years as a community professional,\\xa0Nicole Saunders\\u2018 experience has ranged from consulting to launching communities for startups to currently leading the community team at\\xa0Zendesk. She\\u2019s built communities across forums, social media, and offline. Her background also includes social media management, event production, communications, and freelance writing.

Passionate about building community both in her work and in life, Nicole engages in several volunteer efforts, including mentoring for the Wisconsin Women\\u2019s Network, singing with the Philharmonic Chorus of Madison, and teaching dance fitness classes.

Transcript

Your Thoughts

If you have any thoughts on this episode that you\\u2019d like to share, please leave me a comment,\\xa0send me an email\\xa0or a\\xa0tweet. If you enjoy the show, we would be so grateful if you spread the word and supported\\xa0Community Signal on Patreon.

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