Why we Should Worry about Response Rates in Enterprise Social Systems
This post continues our series on key SWOOP indicators. We have %Response Rate as a key performance indicator for organisations embracing problem solving and innovation within their Enterprise Social Networking (ESN) platforms. Difficult problems require deep dialogue, discussion and debate to be effectively solved. A response to a posting is hopefully the beginning of a constructive discussion, hence an important indicator of the degree to which an organisation is predisposed to solving problems online. Our ESN benchmarking of close to 50 organisations has the average response rate at 72%, but with a large range from a low of 32% to a high of 93%.
The Response Rate widget identifies the percentage of posts that have received a written ‘reply’ and/or a ‘like’, for the period selected. It will also identify the % posts that have received no response; a measure that community managers need to monitor closely. The timeliness of the response is also reported. The Response Rate widget is available at all SWOOP reporting levels, from the individual, right through to the Enterprise overall. While not all posts are framed as problems, the response rate does reflect how responsive an organisation is overall. A response is a tangible signal of value received. In the absence of specific value stories, it is the most direct measure of value being facilitated on the ESN platform. For the individual, a poor response rate can indicate that your postings are not framed appropriately for attracting a response. For a group, a poor response rate may indicate a lack of a critical mass of members, or inadequate community management.
Business Imperative
It sounds obvious, but before problems can be solved, they need to be shared. Sharing a problem can be construed as a weakness. When senior management openly share a problem, they run the risk of ‘losing face’. Isn’t solving difficult problems what they are being paid to do? Yet it is the senior management that need to lead the way in generating a culture for collaborative problem solving. As David Thodey, the former CEO of Telstra told us, ‘Management don’t know everything…we have been guilty of releasing poor policies that have taken us years to recover from’. Thodey used the ESN to share problems that new policies were required for, and then getting feedback before finally releasing a new policy.
The first challenge therefore is to develop a culture which respects that sharing a problem is not a weakness but a strength of character. Think about using hash tags to monitor problems posted, and their journey to a hopeful resolution. Once problems are shared freely on the ESN, the Response Rate measure can be used to measure problems solved. Many of the online technical forms are established specifically for tracking problem resolutions. There is no reason that the ESN cannot be used in a similar way.