Executive summary

Samsung Electronics America (SEA) builds technology to connect people. They have the largest cross-product category portfolio of any company, and they do a majority of their sales through retail partners. Before they partnered with Khoros, Samsung’s customer engagement strategy was focused on creating self-help content on Samsung.com, but they wanted to continue to evolve their digital presence. To reach their goals, Samsung partnered with Khoros to build the Samsung Member Community.

The biggest problem Samsung faced before they partnered with Khoros was understanding which digital channels they should be on. They knew their customers wanted to connect in more places than Samsung.com, but they didn’t know how to find out which channels mattered most to their audience, and they didn’t know how to shift their digital traffic from Samsung.com to the channels where their customers were already having conversations. Samsung wanted to build a community where their customers could find expert support for every question, and they wanted it to be a place where their most loyal customers could connect around Samsung products. Once Samsung partnered with Khoros, they were able to make smart decisions about where to focus their efforts. Now, with support from Khoros, Samsung interacts with their audience on Twitter, Facebook, and on their community.

With Khoros, Samsung was able to shift their customer support strategy to organic conversations in their community by driving their SEO traffic from the website to the community. Now, instead of creating content for every potential customer question, Samsung supports organic conversations in their community —conversations that offer customers the answers they need and builds a large group of dedicated experts among their peers — whom they call Ambassadors. In addition to call deflection and increased traffic, Samsung’s community has helped them find customers to connect with offline as well. Recently they brought ten community ambassadors to a launch event for a new phone, providing an opportunity for true relationship building.

Samsung is now a leader in the community space— they’ve done something that very few other companies have done by embedding their Khoros-powered community in their application. They’re also always working to identify potential new and emerging channels, like messaging. Samsung has taken the success of their community and integrated it into other launches, such as the Samsung Member App, a place where customers can find the latest news about Samsung products, connect with other customers on community, and find access to self-service tools. Samsung will continue to rely on Khoros as they grow their channels and expand their reach.

Results

Through their partnership with Khoros, Samsung has realized a dramatic increase in accepted solutions on their Khoros-powered community, as well as a reduction — by half — in the need for phone support. For Samsung, always being connected means being in the channels where their customers want to have conversations, and with Khoros, now they are.