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How do I fix the red ring of death on my Xbox 360?

Can dogs eat pears?

Why doesn’t H&M sell clothes online?

Can you bring your own alcohol on a cruise ship?

I love Yahoo! Answers. If I have a question, someone there has already asked it… And more than likely, someone else has already answered.

I cannot imagine the number of minutes and hours I have saved customer service representatives by consulting with others on Yahoo! Answers to give my questions answers before sending an email or making a phone call. Sure, the answers are not always accurate, but knowledge is power and there is power in numbers.

It’s a two-way street. I’m saving customer service time and energy, and I’m getting sufficiently semi-accurate answers to my questions without having to listen to elevator music.

Now, the real question here is, “What does this have to do with building web sites for c{s} clients?” More than you would think! It’s becoming increasingly popular to recreate the Yahoo! Answers model within corporate web sites.

Real-world scenario: You have a question about how to import phone numbers from your iPhone to your Prius via Bluetooth. You decide to go to Apple.com to just schedule an appointment with the Genius Bar. Before scheduling, you hunt around the site for answers and discover not just an FAQ section, but an entire customer to customer help system! Chances are, you’re going to find the answer to your question here. If not, you’re free to go ahead and post the question. You will likely receive a few possible answers and make some new friends before your Genius Bar appointment on Saturday at 7am. You’re happy. Apple is happy that they just avoided you.

Apple is unique. Their lifestyle-permeating products cultivate customers who enjoy providing answers to others with no evident reward beyond the satisfaction of shared knowledge. Not many companies are blessed with such dedicated customers. Taking the Apple.com customer-to-customer model a few steps further in the Yahoo! Answers direction, a Q/A system can involve call and response credits. This inspires users to answer each other’s questions in order to earn the ability to ask a question. This is precisely how Yahoo! Answers built up such an active body of users sharing an incredible wealth of knowledge (and lack, thereof)!

Dunder Mifflin is not the best fit. Much like creating a social network, this is not suited for every company. Here are some key questions to ask when evaluating whether or not the Yahoo! Answers model would be a good fit for your company:

1. Do my customers consider my product or service to be a part of their lifestyle?

2. Do we get a high volume of customer service inquiries?

3. If we have a message board on our company site, is it very active?

4. Do my customers have more than just one or two questions about interacting with my products throughout the course of our relationship?

5. Do my customers have things in common with each other?

If you can answer “Yes” to all of these questions, your company would likely be a good fit for a Q/A system modeled after Yahoo! Answers.

AND you’d be a great fit for centre{source}… Call me, we’ll chat!