For my final blog entry, I'd like to discuss an element from our reading for this Unit -- Chapter 9 in Delivering Digitally: "Redesigning Support Services." The reading deals with three important aspects of learner support, the first of which is setting up help desk services. Beyond the simple necessity for helpdesk services, which I think can't be emphasized enough and is all too obvious in our "customer-centric" society, pages 160-163 starts to discuss other strategies for support, such as setting up peer support social networks.
I'm not entirely sold on this concept, because I liken it to the self-help "forums" that seem to be growing on customer support websites for products of all kinds. Basically, the idea is that the company is trying to save money by not having you call their customer support hotline to ask your question. Instead, they'd prefer you to utilize their online self-help forums, where you can look up via a site search query, questions that others have asked about your particular product. The question asked and the answer provided is shown, in what the company hopes will help to solve your question before you need to call them and ask it. Most companies today tout this as "24/7 online support" and say that it's more customer-friendly to have all of these answers readily available, but in truth I have found that most self-help forums are wastes of time, and I end up having to call customer support anyway. And, not only that, but I end up having to search harder for a customer support phone number to call, because the companies seem to do a pretty good job of hiding it in the site because they REALLY want you to use their self-help forums instead.
So, the question is, if we were to utilize the peer network model of self-help support for DE, is this what it would look like? I think it probably would, because I can't think of any other way to do it. And, if this is what it would look like, is this an adequate substitution for true helpdesk support?
Beyond issues of quality, which at this point are probably going to be subjective opinion (but you should definitely comment below and tell me your opinion!), I tried to find some hard data to show me whether peer network as a support mechanism was actually more cost-effective than traditional helpdesk support (as in, you call a phone number and someone helps you immediately). To my surprise, I actually couldn't find anything on this subject! I looked on both Google Scholar and regular Google. Maybe I just don't have the search terms correct -- has anyone else ever tried to look for information on the cost effectiveness of online self-help forums? I'd be interested to hear what you find!
No comments:
Post a Comment