A Few Notes On The Community

[kee-lo_]

Hi,

Well, I have been exploring the community, and I'm not sure if it's because it is new, but it seems NOWHERE as busy at is was 10 years ago!  I remember having to answer 30 queries a day here, now it seems there's maybe one or two.  

Also when did ClubVAIO close?  I remember talking to Talamus at the time but I can't remember when it was!

What brought the forums back then?  Also do we still have the round table for experts?  

I'm quite glad to see Sony move into the Android market, and the Xperia phone looks like the best around for people who want to take photos.  I was quite impressed by the quality of it, if I can ever afford one I'd get one tomorrow.

Anyway, that's my thoughts, 

ciao

[tweety2b]

Hi Kee-Lo,

Welcome back. Good to see you. And I mean that. I am not the kind of person to whole a grudge for a long time.

So for me the past is the past 😉

In terms of your observation, you are right! It does look quieter and that is because it is.

Club VAIO was switched off about 3-4 years ago when we introduced the European Technical product Forum. Next to that (on a different section of the Sony Europe website) we launched what we called "passion zones". They were designed to help people with the experiential part of their product. How to get more out of their product.

The reason we split the Forum and the "Passion zones" is still a mistery to me but we did it anyway. After 3 years we had enough data and Voice of customer to go to management and show them it wasn't working as well as Club VAIO was. So last year we started working on a new platform which would enable us to combine both elements back into 1 big COMMUNITY

We did this on June 24th this year. Since then we started to re-align business focus to this area rather than the scattered attention we had been getting in the past. You will notice we are now running Sony World Photography Awards campaign on the Community and no longer on the product website. And soon we will have IFA press conference and all new product announcements here as well. So we are trying to move Sony Europe back in the direction we ere with Club VAIO. Itsn't going to be easy because some key factors changed in the meantime from a customer/landscape point of view:

1) 10 years ago we ere pretty much the only brand that had a big community

2) It was easy to focus on 1 product category, now we are focusing on all electronics (except Mobiel and PS)

3) There was no such thing as Facebook/Twitter etc... so Social media was limited to forums and communities. Now the list of platforms a company needs to be active on makes it difficult to focus.

4) people tend to ask Service and support questions all over the place - Facebook and twitter now as well

5) last but not least Youtube. Although it made our life easier to post videos, it also delivers a vast area of information on any of our products.

So finding the secret ingredient that will make this community stand out is what we will need to do in order to make this work. I have a pretty good idea on what it is or more importantly who it is.... it is you guys.

Without you guys we will never achieve the goal.

Just thought I'ld throw my thought in the game.

Cheers,

Nico

[Anonymous]

Reading this thread about the old ClubVaio that is/was disbanded.  And was thinking - New Community, New way of doing things... New Club??

I have noticed the steady increase of support requests in the TV and Home Entertainment subsection, since the begining of the year until now - I guess also helped along by the famous EPG update of the RDR recorders.

[kee-lo_]

Hi Nico!

Yes, it has been a long time since we last spoke, and I never had a grudge with you either.  Think it was just I'd spent too long there, and was getting too involved with the Club.  Stepping back helped a lot - but I'm not sure how I could be as helpful today as I was back then.

It seems it has all gone full circle.  Promoting on social media would be probably a good way to get members, but who knows, maybe some old Masters and Experts will come back to VAIO and Sony.  If it wasn't for the mailing I would have never known it was back as a community.

I think if everyone has the patience and time this community could be just as good, as you say it's the members and the support that make it what it is, and they will come over time.  The thing is we need to promote this as a good resource - so maybe we should think of more "how tos" and maybe more tutorials.  I think showing willingness to support people outside the forums would be good too, like VAIO-Link.

It's the old "service with a smile" that'll help at the end of the day, after all they can ask google, read a page and do it, but if there's a large membership and happy banter they'll stay with it.