Newsgroup o Forum?

To offer support which is the way to Go?

[quebecostarica]

Which way is the best to offer support to your customers?

A newsgroup?
A forum?

I really don't know where to go! On top of it I read somewhere this:

" The reason newsgroups are better than forums is that
the newsgroups can live in my email program, so that
when a new post is made, it's right there in my inbox,
so that I can get right to it.

With a forum, I have to keep a browser up and on
that page, and then have to purposfully go back there,
refresh, and re-read to see new postings. Even if
that process only takes 30 seconds, I'd have to do
it a few hundred times a day to keep on top of things.

Not very efficient when you're trying to run a business! "

Don't read me wrong, I do not want to start a war! It's just that I am really puzzle!

Thanks for any feedbaks!

Roger

[rogerd]

Welcome to WebmasterWorld, quebecostarica!

I'd highly recommend a forum approach for support - with pervasive spam filtering, email is a lot less reliable these days. Of course, both formats overlap a lot and, in many ways, do the same thing.

For a support forum, the important elements are:
1) an easily-accessible and searchable body of past questions and answers - this will help users find answers quickly and reduce the number of repeat questions.
2) community answering, i.e., anyone who is in the forum/newsgroup should be able to reply. This cuts down on the staff requirements, and often results in better answers.
3) E-mail notification - this should be optional, but when a visitor posts a question it's good to be notified that a reply has been posted. Often, the notification can include the full message text if desired.

[treeline]

I've found Newsgroup support frustrating overall. It's pretty cool when you stay on top of it ALL the time. But. The newsgroup reader tends to obliterate the bodies of older posts, keeping only the headers, and it can be hard to find older posts either in your own system or from the newsgroup. Of course, professional wrestlers with software may have better luck, but defaults tend to cause problems.

Forums are easier to look back and find that gem you forgot to save.

[rogerd]

In general, forum software offers more sophisticated community building tools - user profiles, membership levels, granular topic access, moderation tools, etc.

Part of the answer lies in whether you think you can build a community over time, or whether you are really looking for more of a "trouble ticket" system.