The real question is – by having a forum for the users of your web hosting company, is there really any benefit at all? Having a forum along side providing support to your end users may or may not make your hosting company look more professional or reliable but have other benefits.
Why you should use a forum software for your hosting company?
Well, for many advantages that it has got but only when the forum is functional and your staff pays attention to what users say in the forum.
Communicate – A forum can be very useful to make the announcements about server outages, network upgrades, planned and unplanned outages, security attacks, power outages etc. Use it to the best of your advantage and request your users to check the forums first to find out if there are known issues with network or servers they are on. This saves on a lot of support tickets.
Knowledge Base – Use the forum like a knowledge base. Make sticky posts for new users, create threads that talk about most common issues and resolutions. Analyze your previous tickets and make sticky posts about most commonly reported issues by new users. This will save a lot of time for your staff.
Grow into a Community – Users help other users. When a forum is functional, you will find that end users often help other users on technical issues. This will result in significant increase in productive hours for your staff and that time could be used in doing something else.
I see the forum as a value added service that has more advantages than the disadvantages which I am unable to think of. I recommend that your hosting company should have a forum and your staff pay close attention to it. It adds value after all!
[tags]Web Hosting, Customer Support, Forum Hosting, Internet Forum Software[/tags]