Verizon Connects with Customers through Web-Based Forum

By Calvin Azuri

TMCnet Contributing Editor

 

The Verizon Community Forums reportedly have increased interaction among customers through personalized peer-to-peer advice and feedback.

 

The online venue provides customers a place to exchange experiences, tips, solutions and techniques with other Verizon (News - Alert) customers about Verizon products and services.

 

The forms have generated more than 10 million page views since their roll-out in July 2008, according to Verizon, and have been well-received since most customers now expect to find answers to their technical questions online. They deflect a significant number of support calls, which in turn results in measurable cost savings. Verizon created its Community Forums in collaboration with Lithium Technologies (News - Alert), an expert in creating successful online communities for large-enterprise organizations.

 

Officials at Verizon say the forums help customers interact with each other, ask questions and learn about the company’s products and services. It is the community’s highly active members that post answers on the forums. Such members, who are called “super users”, form an important subset of customers in this online community. The Community Forums have enabled Verizon to leverage the experts in its customer base to provide quality service and support to all of its customers.

 

One such super user in the forums is Justin McMurry of Keller, Texas. His involvement in the community grew from a natural interest in Verizon’s FiOS (News - Alert) TV and FiOS Internet services. A former technical support expert at a technology company, McMurry enjoys solving problems and answering questions for others who visit the Community Forums. According to McMurry, he started to get more involved in order to help other customers who got online seeking information. He adds that the important thing about the forums is that they’re easy to access and get questions answered.

 

The Verizon Community Forums deal with the company’s residential and small-business products and services, digital-subscriber-line-based High Speed Internet service, residential phone service as well as other products and services. They help the company get on the lookout for ideas to improve its product offerings. The company fast-tracked the delivery of the light-dimming feature in set-top box software upgrades provided to FiOS TV customers due to a recent post in the Community Forums about the bright display from a FiOS TV set-top box.