IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/bla/popmgt/v32y2023i12p3873-3889.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

A boosting policy to optimize user forum performance: Model and validation

Author

Listed:
  • Radha Mookerjee
  • Wael Jabr
  • Harpreet Singh

Abstract

Near‐constant Internet access through desktop or mobile devices has turned self‐service support forums into the first port of call for users seeking to troubleshoot product or service issues. The firms providing these products and services also benefit from this trend since it reduces user support costs by diverting service requests away from costlier support channels, such as help desks. For the continued success of such a forum, however, the managing entity must ensure that users receive timely solutions to their inquiries quickly and regularly. We develop a mathematical model of a user forum's operations to obtain a “white box” view of a user forum and reveal the support system's dynamics. Then, using a large and comprehensive dataset of questions and answers from Apple's iPhone user forum, we empirically estimate the forum's performance to validate the predictions of the mathematical model. Our results demonstrate that the predictions closely match the forum's actual performance, with an error of less than 10%. We then propose and analyze an optimal threshold policy that boosts a thread to rekindle user interest and demonstrate the benefit of our intervention policy in managing the iPhone forum.

Suggested Citation

  • Radha Mookerjee & Wael Jabr & Harpreet Singh, 2023. "A boosting policy to optimize user forum performance: Model and validation," Production and Operations Management, Production and Operations Management Society, vol. 32(12), pages 3873-3889, December.
    • Handle: RePEc:bla:popmgt:v:32:y:2023:i:12:p:3873-3889
    DOI: 10.1111/poms.14066
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://doi.org/10.1111/poms.14066
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1111/poms.14066?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Yuan Chen & Hsing Kenneth Cheng & Yang Liu & Jingchuan Pu & Liangfei Qiu & Ning Wang, 2022. "Knowledge‐sharing ties and equivalence in corporate online communities: A novel source to understand voluntary turnover," Production and Operations Management, Production and Operations Management Society, vol. 31(10), pages 3896-3913, October.
    2. Debabrata Dey & Abhijeet Ghoshal & Atanu Lahiri, 2021. "Support Forums and Software Vendor’s Pricing Strategy," Information Systems Research, INFORMS, vol. 32(2), pages 653-669, June.
    3. Anuj Kumar & Rahul Telang, 2012. "Does the Web Reduce Customer Service Cost? Empirical Evidence from a Call Center," Information Systems Research, INFORMS, vol. 23(3-part-1), pages 721-737, September.
    4. Moinzadeh, Kamran & Berk, Emre, 2000. "An archiving model for a hierarchical information storage environment," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 123(1), pages 206-225, May.
    5. Yuewen Liu & Juan Feng, 2021. "Does Money Talk? The Impact of Monetary Incentives on User-Generated Content Contributions," Information Systems Research, INFORMS, vol. 32(2), pages 394-409, June.
    6. Jingchuan Pu, 2022. "Do Online Communities Improve Job Performance in the Geographically Dispersed Organization?," Production and Operations Management, Production and Operations Management Society, vol. 31(2), pages 403-421, February.
    7. Anindya Ghose & Sha Yang, 2009. "An Empirical Analysis of Search Engine Advertising: Sponsored Search in Electronic Markets," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 55(10), pages 1605-1622, October.
    8. Jingchuan Pu & Yuan Chen & Liangfei Qiu & Hsing Kenneth Cheng, 2020. "Does Identity Disclosure Help or Hurt User Content Generation? Social Presence, Inhibition, and Displacement Effects," Information Systems Research, INFORMS, vol. 31(2), pages 297-322, June.
    9. Linda Argote & Manpreet Hora, 2017. "Organizational Learning and Management of Technology," Production and Operations Management, Production and Operations Management Society, vol. 26(4), pages 579-590, April.
    10. Vijay S. Mookerjee & Yong Tan, 2002. "Analysis of a Least Recently Used Cache Management Policy for Web Browsers," Operations Research, INFORMS, vol. 50(2), pages 345-357, April.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Yuan Chen & Hsing Kenneth Cheng & Yang Liu & Jingchuan Pu & Liangfei Qiu & Ning Wang, 2022. "Knowledge‐sharing ties and equivalence in corporate online communities: A novel source to understand voluntary turnover," Production and Operations Management, Production and Operations Management Society, vol. 31(10), pages 3896-3913, October.
    2. Jialie Chen, 2023. "Learning and skill set formation: A structural examination of version upgrades, user visibility, and AI strategies," Production and Operations Management, Production and Operations Management Society, vol. 32(12), pages 3856-3872, December.
    3. Wangsheng Zhu & Subodha Kumar & Vijay Mookerjee, 2024. "Coordination in Multibrand, Multimedia Advertising: Is It Always a Good Thing?," Information Systems Research, INFORMS, vol. 35(3), pages 1011-1033, September.
    4. Abou Nabout, Nadia & Skiera, Bernd, 2012. "Return on Quality Improvements in Search Engine Marketing," Journal of Interactive Marketing, Elsevier, vol. 26(3), pages 141-154.
    5. Anindya Ghose & Avi Goldfarb & Sang Pil Han, 2013. "How Is the Mobile Internet Different? Search Costs and Local Activities," Information Systems Research, INFORMS, vol. 24(3), pages 613-631, September.
    6. Navdeep Sahni, 2015. "Effect of temporal spacing between advertising exposures: Evidence from online field experiments," Quantitative Marketing and Economics (QME), Springer, vol. 13(3), pages 203-247, September.
    7. Carattini, Stefano & Gillingham, Kenneth & Meng, Xiangyu & Yoeli, Erez, 2024. "Peer-to-peer solar and social rewards: Evidence from a field experiment," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 219(C), pages 340-370.
    8. Orquin, Jacob L. & Bagger, Martin P. & Lahm, Erik S. & Grunert, Klaus G. & Scholderer, Joachim, 2020. "The visual ecology of product packaging and its effects on consumer attention," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 111(C), pages 187-195.
    9. Cai, Ya-Jun & Lo, Chris K.Y., 2020. "Omni-channel management in the new retailing era: A systematic review and future research agenda," International Journal of Production Economics, Elsevier, vol. 229(C).
    10. Stephan Wachtel & Thomas Otter, 2013. "Successive Sample Selection and Its Relevance for Management Decisions," Marketing Science, INFORMS, vol. 32(1), pages 170-185, September.
    11. Jeonghye Choi & David R. Bell & Leonard M. Lodish, 2012. "Traditional and IS-Enabled Customer Acquisition on the Internet," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 58(4), pages 754-769, April.
    12. Martin Spann & Oliver Hinz & Vandana Ramachandran, 2013. "Business and Information Systems Engineering and Marketing," Business & Information Systems Engineering: The International Journal of WIRTSCHAFTSINFORMATIK, Springer;Gesellschaft für Informatik e.V. (GI), vol. 5(3), pages 127-128, June.
    13. Kinshuk Jerath & Anuj Kumar & Serguei Netessine, 2015. "An Information Stock Model of Customer Behavior in Multichannel Customer Support Services," Manufacturing & Service Operations Management, INFORMS, vol. 17(3), pages 368-383, July.
    14. Qili Wang & Liangfei Qiu & Wei Xu, 2024. "Informal Payments and Doctor Engagement in an Online Health Community: An Empirical Investigation Using Generalized Synthetic Control," Information Systems Research, INFORMS, vol. 35(2), pages 706-726, June.
    15. Kai-Lung Hui & I. P. L. Png, 2015. "Research Note—Migration of Service to the Internet: Evidence from a Federal Natural Experiment," Information Systems Research, INFORMS, vol. 26(3), pages 606-618, September.
    16. Bayer, Emanuel & Srinivasan, Shuba & Riedl, Edward J. & Skiera, Bernd, 2020. "The impact of online display advertising and paid search advertising relative to offline advertising on firm performance and firm value," International Journal of Research in Marketing, Elsevier, vol. 37(4), pages 789-804.
    17. Francesco Decarolis & Maris Goldmanis & Antonio Penta, 2020. "Marketing Agencies and Collusive Bidding in Online Ad Auctions," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 66(10), pages 4433-4454, October.
    18. Wei Zhou & Zidong Wang, 2020. "Competing for Search Traffic in Query Markets: Entry Strategy, Platform Design, and Entrepreneurship," Working Papers 20-12, NET Institute.
    19. Zhijun Yan & Lini Kuang & Liangfei Qiu, 2022. "Prosocial behaviors and economic performance: Evidence from an online mental healthcare platform," Production and Operations Management, Production and Operations Management Society, vol. 31(10), pages 3859-3876, October.
    20. Avi Goldfarb, 2014. "What is Different About Online Advertising?," Review of Industrial Organization, Springer;The Industrial Organization Society, vol. 44(2), pages 115-129, March.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:bla:popmgt:v:32:y:2023:i:12:p:3873-3889. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Wiley Content Delivery (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/journal/10.1111/(ISSN)1937-5956 .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.