Adding Guestbooks and Forums to Boost Customer Participation

Posted at June 12, 2009

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Getting responses from your customers is a way of letting them know you’re available to them. In that way, they are also potential new or repeat customers. Before the advent of online marketing, this was done through the laborious, costly, and lengthy methods of phone calls, personal visits, and snail mail. Online advertising is primarily website-interaction-based. So the change in media entails a change in tactics.

Two methods to boost customer participation are guestbooks and forums. When a prospect browses your site, there should be a button or small link available but non-obtrusive, one saying that you can leave your comments and feedback here. The usual “please sign our guest book” has somehow gotten old.

Guestbooks are a chance for prospects to let you know what they think of your product, site, or service without committing to a purchase. It’s a chance for you to respond and address misconceptions and false impressions. If you do that, past customers who visit your site and see the guestbook will get the impression that you take care of your customers. Feedback and comments are most welcome, the message seems to be, because you are continuously after your customer’s satisfaction.

Forums are a chance for prospects to see how you’re addressing specific concerns raised by both customers and prospects. Each forum thread is often a small issue on its own, with someone starting the thread, you answering, and the thread eliciting more responses. Even if people who view them do not post responses, the goal is to let them see that you are doing something for the customer.

Both these methods work in boosting participation from repeat and potential customers. However, these online marketing strategies require both manpower and consistency from you.

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