How do you feel about companies adding forums?

[Glen]

I guess you could say this site is a bit like a 'company' as you offer services, same goes for seo-guy, digitalpoint and submitexpress

Whats your general feeling? :)

[Paz]

I can't remember why we built the forum... LOL I think the original idea was that we can attract clients, but we've not really had a sniff since we opened. Shelley and Gavin did bring something to the forum with their affiliate exertise though, and we're very happy to have Chatmaster, Joc and yourself (in alphabetical order.. LOL). It's very early though.

We get all our clients via word of mouth and advertising agencies. Maybe the forum will kick in one day, but I think it'll be a while yet.

[Glen]

Ah i see, i thought the rest was built around the idea of having a forum

[Chatmaster]

A forum can be a very useful tool in terms of visitor retention and recency. It can also be a useful tool to improve customer service and is certainly a great benefit. However it also has its problems. For a company the biggest problem is that the forum is open for all to read so if there are complaints against them in the open and they do not have an open relationship with their customers or do not know how to handle complaints in a forum they will probably pick up more problems than accomplish anything. However the opposite is also true as the complaints that gets handled can improve customer relations and people can read up on problems and get answers without wasting the time of the support team.

From a marketing perspective it most certainly is a must in my book.

From an SEO perspective it also adds value by increasing the ranking ability of the site as other people gets the opportunity to add content to the site. So most certainly it adds value there as well.

One issue however. SEOGuy and I know there might be differences never held much attraction for me as it was owned by an SEO company. A company selling SEO services. DP as well. You will find that I mostly just lurk these forums and do not contribute much there, as I do not feel comfortable at all doing it. Associating yourself directly with a company can make people feel uncomfortable contributing to it.