A top-tier Solid-State Array (SSA) solution provider builds data centers and helps customers maximize the value of their data for a competitive advantage. Their solutions enable SaaS companies, cloud service providers, and enterprise and public sector customers to deliver real-time, secure data to power their mission-critical production, DevOps, and modern analytics environments in a multi-cloud environment.
This SSA provider was looking for a “best-of-breed,” community; one that was mobile responsive, included crucial features in the out-of-the-box price and could deliver ongoing support and guidance.
Although this community had thousands of members, discussions and threads to migrate, this was a simple task for the team at Vanilla and was done quickly and with ease.
Vanilla stood out from its competitors because of the level of customization that could be done to the community itself and to all of the out-of-the-box features, including gamification.
The community quickly saw a bump in engagement, including traffic and posts, and their KPIs improved immensely; their average time to first comment was now less than 9 minutes.
Before Vanilla, this SSA solution provider was working with a vendor that was providing them with an all-in-one solution; as part of this Suite, they were able to implement their first community.
It was clear from the beginning that the community was extremely valuable, however in 2015, they decided to move from this Suite to a “best of breed.” They were interested in finding a vendor that could focus exclusively on community and help address their business needs. Armed with the knowledge of what was working and what wasn’t, the Community Manager was given the go-ahead to explore other options.
And to the CMGR, this was great news.
One of the major challenges that their community faced was the fact that it wasn’t mobile responsive. The “all-in-one” solution that they had wasn’t “all-in-one” at all; many features that communities rely on weren’t included in the out-of-the-box price. To have a mobile responsive platform, their vendor required additional fees on top of their already hefty price. “For me,” the CMGR said, “I just think that this should be something that’s included in everything that we use.”
Moreover, since their community operates as a support-based community, one of their main goals is to ensure their community is engaged and that questions are answered. To that end, having a non-responsive platform was actually hurting their business goals; the average time to first response was about two days.
Their Community Manager knew that changes needed to be made, and so, the search for a new vendor began.
Their current community platform was incredibly expensive, which might not have been such an issue if the cost also incorporated a number of crucial community features, such as mobile responsiveness, however these features weren’t included in the base price.
Every time the SSA solution provider needed help troubleshooting an issue for their community, or they opened a support ticket, they weren’t able to get the support they needed, when they needed it. They were simply told to forward their questions to the vendors community for support.
In addition, the community response rate went from roughly 30% to 65%. All of these amazing results, their Community Manager says, come from a powerful combination of crucial Vanilla features.
In addition, the SSA solution provider is making good use of other Vanilla features that they didn’t have with their previous vendor. Since the launch, their Community Manager has incorporated a number of gamification features in the community to help encourage members to participate. By adding special ranks and badges, their Community Manager believes that members have another great reason to engage in the community.
“One of the things that I’ve started to do with the community gamification is to hold a monthly draw for those on the leaderboard — the top 10 members with the most points in the community are entered for a chance to win a prize,” says their Community Manager.
Ultimately, it’s a combination of all of these little things that have led the SSA solution provider to see the best results that their community has ever seen.
