At the recent Online Community Business Forum, Joe Cothrel and I presented on Online Community ROI.
Specifically, we proposed the notion that there was enough publicly available data and likely enough data internally that most companies could put together a model that describes the ROI of its’ Online Community Investments.
Session 3: Online Community ROI
Publicly available stats (compiled by Joe)
- Community users remain customers 50% longer than non-community users. (AT&T, 2002)
- 43% of support forums visits are in lieu of opening up a support case. (Cisco, 2004).
- Community users spend 54% more than non-community users (EBay, 2006)
- In customer support, live interaction costs 87% more per transaction on average than forums and other web self-service options. (ASP, 2002)
- Cost per interaction in customers support averages $12 via the contact center versus $0.25 via self-service options. (Forrester, 2006)
- Community users visit nine times more often than non-community users (McKInsey, 2000).
- Community users have four times as many page views as non-community users (McKInsey, 2000).
- 56% percent of online community members log in once a day or more (Annenberg, 2007)
- Customers report good experiences in forums more than twice as often as they do via calls or mail. (Jupiter, 2006)
From the Forum One OC ROI Survey (April 2007):
- Only 22% of respondents had clear ROI Model
- 42% had staff of 1-5 people
- 49% Report Monthly to Mgmt
- Establishing ROI Model was a priority for most respondents in the near term
Full powerpoint deck here.
7 responses so far ↓
Returns on CoPs stats (credible) « eme ká eme // May 8, 2007 at 10:49 am
[...] on CoPs stats (credible) 8 05 2007 At the, Bill Johnson offered a recap of CoP ROI statistics that are publicly [...]
Social Media Group » Blog Archive » The ROI of Communities - Part II // November 23, 2007 at 6:55 am
[...] Canadian Marketing Association, and came across the most wonderful list of statistics, courtesy of Bill Johnston, and compiled by Joe Cothrel. Amazingly, I’d never come across these numbers before, so I [...]
maggiefox // November 23, 2007 at 1:33 pm
I know this is a bit of an older post, Bill - but it’s a great one. Thank you for sharing these stats!
Dave Jobling // November 28, 2007 at 4:21 am
I, too, would be very interested in chasing down the original references behind those statistics. I have a business case to prepare … you know how it is.
Little social media ROI roundup : herbsawyer.com // December 3, 2007 at 9:54 am
[...] From a recent Online Community Business Forum, Joe Cothrel and Bill Johnston presented Online Community ROI [...]
Toby // December 10, 2007 at 7:13 am
Doing some research on communities and ROI and came across your post. Thanks for posting your deck .. excellent resource. Ditto Dave’s request any references to the stats would be much appreciated.
Toby // December 10, 2007 at 7:27 am
Bill - read to quickly and didn’t see your notations.
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