More efficient way to keep helpers in the loop

h_henna

Hey folks,

As you know, our helpers do some amazing work and we want to make things as easy as possible for them when advising our helpees on what their next best step is in order to get their issue fixed or their question answered. Part of that is making sure that the helpers are as up to date as possible with our recent changes and new features available on giffgaff.

After loads of brainstorming, we thought the best way to bring this to life would be by having a sticky thread in Help and Support, which we can update every time we change anything that impacts the advice members give on the Help and Support forum.

There are a few existing stickies on the H+S board but, one that spoke out to us in particular which would make a great opening post for this new thread - What does a great post contain? by @essie112mm (Thanks Essie!). So, we have reached out to her to collaborate and here is an example of a structure to the thread we came up with:

Opening post:

Structure of an update:

We plan on getting this out real soon and locking the thread so that the members that subscribe to it only get notified when an update has been posted, but don’t you worry, we will have this thread here open in case you want to share your thoughts, ideas and feedback.

I really hope you've found this useful.

Wishing you all an awesome weekend ahead!

davidevans0000

well done @h_henna this looks like it could be good for the H&S section.

shabazmoqsud

@h_henna wrote:

Hey folks,

As you know, our helpers do some amazing work and we want to make things as easy as possible for them when advising our helpees on what their next best step is in order to get their issue fixed or their question answered. Part of that is making sure that the helpers are as up to date as possible with our recent changes and new features available on giffgaff.

After loads of brainstorming, we thought the best way to bring this to life would be by having a sticky thread in Help and Support, which we can update every time we change anything that impacts the advice members give on the Help and Support forum.

There are a few existing stickies on the H+S board but, one that spoke out to us in particular which would make a great opening post for this new thread - What does a great post contain? by @essie112mm (Thanks Essie!). So, we have reached out to her to collaborate and here is an example of a structure to the thread we came up with:

Opening post:

Structure of an update:

We plan on getting this out real soon and locking the thread so that the members that subscribe to it only get notified when an update has been posted, but don’t you worry, we will have this thread here open in case you want to share your thoughts, ideas and feedback.

I really hope you've found this useful.

Wishing you all an awesome weekend ahead!

@h_henna this is a great idea and perfect way for helpers to provide up to date information when answering questions in H&S section to members

Well done to you and rest of giffgaff team for the continued awesome improvements.

mcilwraith

sounds a good plan to me @h_henna

allan1954

looks like a great plan to me @h_henna

figment_uk

Sounds like a no-brainer to me @h_henna

I hope that it is going to be updated regularly, and doesn't get forgotten about after a couple of months, like many of its predecessors.

essie112mm

Good afternoon Henna and thank you for mentioning me.

Improving the way in which helpers post and assist fellow members with their issues on Help and Support is something that has long been overdue. I suppose the act of helping is the essence of the word giffgaff : mutual assistance. (It helps of course that payback oils the wheels nicely though :smileywink 🙂 But whether given for altruistic purposes - and I know that there are some who do just that - or for reward it is important that the help we offer is the best that we can give. Important not only for the person needing assistance but also for the credibility of giffgaff.

Over the last couple of years things have been slowly changing for the better and this new thread is yet another step in the right direction, which I welcome. To ensure that it is seen by as many helpers as possible might I suggest that when it is posted in H&S all regular contribtors are sent a PM with a link to it as many never visit any of the other community forums and will not read this thread. And when any new member posts giving help for the first time they are also sent an automatic PM advising them of the stickied thread.

Finally, can I ask if there are any plans to place a stickied + locked Service Checker thread on Help and Support? The one on the Service Updates page would obviously need to stay in place, but a duplicate might cut down on the number of "help I have no service" threads, as members often go straight to H&S without checking elsewhere to see if there is an issue.

roxy_r

We will indeed send s PM to helpers to let them know, @essie112mm but as always we are counting on your support to make sure that we get the most out of this thread.

When it comes to the Service checker, now that we have launched the Toolbox as a tailored view for helpers we can slowly start preparing the forum to be more helpee focused. One thing we are working on right now is having a little widget at the top that highlights your 3 recently active questions in Help. We have seen plenty of members being confused to how they go back to their question and we hope this will help. At the same time, I would like to simplify the Ask a question form and improve a bit on the copy on that page to make it easier for members to ask their question. We will post about it in more details soon.

h_henna

Hey Guys,

Thank you for all the support and for the great suggestions @essie112mm. I am writing a PM for our helpers as we speak.

The thread has now been posted and you can check it out here.

Happy Monday to all!

endorphin

Hi @h_henna I've seen the thread and it's looking good. A couple of suggestions:

instead of listing out the AaA links explicity (and thus have to maintain them) why not link to this summary page https://community.giffgaff.com/t5/Using-giffgaff/When-to-contact-an-agent/ta-p/9114714

detail how to subscribe to the thread for those who don't know about the Options Menu (or even provide a link to do it if you can).

giffgaff20147

@h_henna

Thanks for preview looks good

tradertall

thanks

h_henna

Hey @endorphin,

Thank you for the great suggestions, both have now been implemented.

figment_uk

@h_henna

I think what endorphin meant was to have a link to the KB article instead of the spoiler containing all of the AaA links. Leaving the spolier in situ means it still needs to be maintained to keep up with changes in the AaA forms, otherwise it will become out of date.

h_henna

@figment_uk

Yep, you're right, we just thought it would be best for helpers to have both options so they can chose which list they want to use. Since we have posted the agent links on the community we have noticed that quite a few helpers are using that instead of the article and did not want to take that away from them. I know that means that there will be a bit more work to be done each time a link gets updated but if some of our members find that useful we are willing to dedicate a bit more time and update both locations.

As always, if we find that it is not working and we fall behind on keeping everything up to date then we can always remove the spoiler and point to the KB article. We count on you to let us know if that ever happens.

Hope that makes more sense 🙂

figment_uk

@h_henna

Makes perfect sense to me. I just hate duplication as it adds to the workload (not mine I hasten to add) and leaves room for errors and omissions. Just look at how many KB articles have to be edited when there's a change to goodybags.

h_henna

I really appreciate that. I thought we'd try this out for a bit and if we find out we're falling behind then we'll revert too having just the KB article.

foolish

Definitely a useful improvement

terencedaly

@h_henna

Very good idea I have often missed updates,I like the way the agent links have been placed in the opening post hopefully this will help all those that simply tell members to contact an agent with no means of how to do it.

Great start

Terry

bluemoonbaz

Great new @h_henna

This will really help ... well as long as its updated regularly 😉