Hewlett-Packard launched its first consumer community last year -- starting with English and soon afterward expanding to several foreign languages with many more on tap. The driving force behind these launches is the team headed by Lois Townsend, manager of social media strategy and operations at HP.

Lois will join Forrester senior analyst Natalie Petouhoff tomorrow (Sept. 2) for a free, live webcast where they will discuss the value of online communities and how "service and support" is fast becoming home to the "customer champion" or advocate. (Register here.)

I spoke with Lois the other day briefly to get the conversations rolling. Feel free to follow up on any of the points below with Lois during tomorrow's webcast -- or just ask the questions below in the comments area and I'll be sure to point them her way.

Tom: When did HP first add a social media element to its website - and where on the HP website was this added?  Was it strictly discussion forums?

Lois: We actually got started with this about 10 years ago when our enterprise organization launched support forums that focused on our commercial customers and IT professionals within large companies.  Within the consumer segment, we dabbled with discussion forums and community by leveraging (borrowing) the enterprise platform, and also, when we merged with Compaq, where they had been running a support community that was focused on the actual end consumer customer:  families, students, "micro" business owners, etc.

Tom: Did you have clear ROI objectives in mind when you launched the HP consumer support forums?

Lois: Yes, absolutely. The ROI was a key component of the overall business case that we presented to stakeholders and senior management.

Tom:  What has been the reaction internally to the new consumer support community?

Lois: Internal reaction to our consumer support forums has been outstanding.  We have tremendous interest and enthusiasm at all levels of the company.  We've had a number of very passionate employee enthusiasts who are active participants in the forum, and we continue to get a high level of interest from various levels of management, who are keenly interested to learn what customers are saying, and to glean valuable customer input and insight.  They frequently ask for updates and metrics, progress on our ROI, and they also enjoy informally loggin on to the community to see firsthand what customers are saying.

Also, our product development organizations appreciate the opportunity to hear firsthand how customers are using HP products, and to learn about suggestions they may have.

Tom:  In addition to support cost savings, what other measures are you looking at in terms of ROI? For example, are you also considering "Voice of the customer," or "customer-driven innovation" (indentify new product and services opportunities and how to improve existing products and services).

Lois:  Yes!  We have a team whose sole focus is to monitor and report out on emerging issues, trends, and ideas that are surfacing on the forums.  We then take this information to see how HP can learn, mitigate issues, and/or improve our products and services.  We also work to quantify this as a benefit that adds to our overall ROI.

Tom: How about SEO?

Lois:  We actively track our SEO results, and also rely on third parties (e.g. Nielsen) to help quantify the benefits we're deriving from our community in terms of impact to SEO.  While the impact has been significant (e.g. a full page of Google search results), we have not yet factored this benefit in to our ROI.

Tom:  How does customer retention also play into your ROI model?

Lois: We are measuring the customer satisfaction increase attributable to the forums, and have seen about a 15% increase since our launch.  We have a sophisticated ROI model that can quantify the benefits of the customer satisfaction benefits in terms of increase customer loyalty (retention) and the corresponding revenue benefit. 

Tom: Thanks for taking the time to speak with me today, Lois! I look forward to your webcast tomorrow. For the readers out there, feel free to ask Lois questions below in the comments area -- and I invite you to join the webcast tomorrow (Sept. 2) at 11 a.m. Pacific and 2 p.m. Eastern time.

One of the biggest questions facing organizations interested in launching peer-to-peer social networks involves determining the return on investment (ROI) -- with a particular eye on improving the customer experience while simultaneously lowering support costs.

"Most firms, when looking at building an ROI model, are focused on customer service in the beginning because that is what's tangible," said Natalie Petouhoff, Ph.D., a senior analyst at Forrester Research. "You have a gut-level instinct on what is tangible in terms of customer support."

However, additional value opportunities are equally attractive -- yet are often overlooked or under-utilized in building an ROI case, she added.

These include:

• "Voice of the customer" or "customer-driven innovation" (indentify new product and services opportunities and how to improve existing products and services).
• Reduced search engine optimization (SEO) costs
• Increased customer retention

Natalie noted that while champions of community must ultimately prove the value to management, many who are initially unable to prove ROI are forced to start with informal "ad-hoc" budgets and borrowed resources with an eye on starting small and then later proving the worth for expanded initiatives.  

To help win these battles in both cases, Natalie published a recent report titled "The ROI of Online Customer Service Communities." In it she identifies four key factors to determine ROI that encompass:

• Benefits: How will your company benefit from customer service online communities?
• Costs: How much will your company pay, both in hard costs and resources, for customer service online communities?
• Risks: How do uncertainties change the total impact of customer service online communities on your business?
• Flexibility: How does this investment in customer service online communities create future options for your organization?

Natalie will address all four factors - and will also share in-depth insights in addition to fielding participant questions - during a free, live webcast on Sept. 2 (more information and registration here).

During the webcast (which will include Lois Townsend, manager of social media strategy and operations at HP), Natalie will also review key findings from her most recent report, titled "Best Practices: Five Strategies for Customer Service Social Media Excellence."   

In the meantime, if you have questions for either Natalie or Lois that you'd like to get in ahead of time, please post them below. I'll do my best to get them addressed during the webcast (or following it). I also invite you to follow Natalie on Twitter. Her user name is drnatalie.

In this video post, Motodev social media/community manager Randy Ksar shares some tips for creating blog content -- and, as important -- for promoting posts. Be sure to check out the MOTODEV blog and follow MOTODEV (and Randy) on Twitter. 

As a veteran of forums initiatives, it's always exciting to see the launch of a support community -- especially one by a company that understands the value of unlocking its customer network to support and promote on its behalf.  The Crucial.com customer network is one such example.

The new community was designed to help customers connect with peers to solve issues related to the company's computer memory products.  Crucial.com, the online destination of memory products provider Lexar Media, has attracted more than 1,000 members in the community's first two months online.

What's even more impressive, however, is that Crucial has seen an enormous reduction in support call center traffc -- including a staggering nearly 50 percent reduction in support chat volume -- freeing up valuable company resources to deliver even better customer support.  Hence, it provides Crucial with an improved ability to scale support needs while keeping operational costs in check.

Word-of-mouth marketing

It's a win-win:  The community gives customers access to their peers, a trusted source for information and support, while easing the burden on existing support channels during a time when increased demand for better memory solutions and an expanding customer base might otherwise strain internal resources.

Fred Waddell, general manager of Crucial.com, said adding community was a way of enhancing the overall customer experience while amplifying existing word-of-mouth marketing by "exposing new customers to potentially thousands of raving fans talking about our products."

Customer-driven innovation

In addition to answering one another's questions, community members have also provided feedback to the company that has already proven valuable. For example, thanks largely to feedback from the community, Crucial.com discovered that 64-bit windows users were experiencing problems using its System Scanner tool.  After additional testing and development, the company was able to resolve the issue and make an enhanced 64-bit version of the tool available to customers.

As a computer geek myself, I'll be keeping a close eye on the Crucial.com customer network as it continues to grow and evolve. In the meantime, drop by and take a look around for yourself. And if your a fan, follow them on Twitter.