Shaw to launch new 'Online Community'

[Jetranger]

I received an email last week inviting me to apply to be a beta member in a new 'Shaw Online Community'. There was a qualifying survey and then this week I received a notice that I had been chosen to participate. I have been informed there are likely others here at Digital Home who were invited and at least one other member has contacted me asking if I have been asked to join this beta test group.

The title was a graphic saying; "We will redefine the customer experience - with your help. Join us in building Shaw's new Online Community"

This is the body of the 'notice and invitation to apply' that I received:

At Shaw, we’re excited to announce that we’ll be launching an online community on SHAW.CA in the coming months that will provide customers with self-help solutions, answers to frequently asked questions and the opportunity to engage in conversations with Shaw experts and fellow users.
As an early adopter of the Shaw Gateway, we’d like to exclusively invite you to be among the first to join the Shaw Community and be a part of helping us build it into a robust hub of information and discussion.
You’ll be the first to have access to the community, and be asked to participate in short weekly exercises and discussions through June and July.
We’re looking for a diverse cross-section of people to help us build the community to be user friendly for everyone, so whether you’re a total techie or only use the internet for Google searches and email, your feedback will help us a lot!

If you’re interested in participating, sign-up by completing this survey(link removed) below before June 18th.

Thanks,
XXXXXXXXXXXXX
Social Media Advisor

On behalf of the Shaw Social Media Team

The 'acceptance' message that came this week offered the opportunity to sign up for one of three initial sessions, two tonight or one tomorrow night. I signed up for the first one tonight.

Anyone else here participating tonight?

While the above message seems to point to me as a Gateway owner as my qualifier, I believe the intent is this 'tool' will be available to all Shaw customers.

[jorton]

I'll be there.

[buckycat]

I was invited

[Kritiker]

I too was accepted.

Note that while participation here, at digitalhome.ca, is more or less anonymous (unless we give the Shaw reps our info), participation in the Online Community , at least at this stage, required our Shaw customer account number. I am not sure what to read into that.

[Mixar69]

I too was invited

[Jetranger]

That's a good point, Kritiker. Shaw has always known who I am so I have no concerns about it but some who prefer to be more anonymous might chose not to join a Shaw run community. I think Shaw has a 'love/hate' relationship with me, depending on who you talk to there.

This new 'online community' is something that was suggested by one of the participants of last summer's Gateway 'Sandbox' session that I attended so it has only taken a year to put together. I hope we are able to show them how useful and satisfying such a forum can be for all parties. The potential for benefiting everyone is high, at least as far as I can see. I think Shaw wants to ensure that only their customers are part of the 'community' and that's why the need for our account numbers.

[GamerGuy]

So this was open to early adopters only?

Or did other people who were not get in to?

My curiosity has been peaked by the knowledge of this community.

[hugh]

Please note I no longer have anything to do with Digital Home (except as a poster) so I am speaking strictly as a consumer.

Please don't sign up because Canada needs vibrant independent forums. By building the Shaw forum, you destroy the value of this one and others that service Shaw customers such as DSLR.

FYI, I am not being anti-Shaw, rather I am being pro-consumer.

I would encourage folks to avoid Rogers, Bell, Telus, Videotron, Cogeco, MTS, Sasktel etc owned forums for the same reason.

While I am no longer the owner of this site, I honestly believe that much of the information known by our members would never be known if this site wasn't owned by an independent company.

[Jetranger]

I would agree with you, Hugh, on the point that DHC provides a more 'open' forum for discussion but even members here have been asking for such a company owned and supported forum. I know I will still come here first as I am pretty sure a lot of the info I get would be 'censored' on the Shaw run forum.

It is a free country and freedom of speech and freedom of choice are big parts of what makes our country such a great place to live.

[GWNorth]

I'm a little sceptical of a Shaw owned community forum. They have been less than open with information in recent past and their past history with Facebook adds to my scepticism. The Shaw Facebook page used to have a support forum. It was filled with nasty comments from customers after they spent hours waiting to get through on the phones for various issues. In between those threads were a few good tidbits. I reported one bug on the 3400 and had it acknowledged by Shaw (I have never heard of a fix though and that was a long time back). Anyway, for whatever reason, Shaw closed that forum down and asked people to use Twitter instead. I suspect the negative postings were just getting to be too much but we lost the admittedly minimal tidbits of information that were there.

[Kritiker]

I am still looking for "a well-known" place on the Shaw web site where Shaw can, and will, let us, and everyone else, know, consistently, what is going on: problems, scheduled fixes, updates, outages, new offers, expiration dates for offers, etc.

I don't want that to be on Facebook, Twitter, or what have you, nor on an Online Community accessible only to those who have signed up. The Online Community may have benefits but the need to sign up concerns me. [Not personally, since Shaw knows who I am too, but for all the other folks out there that never hear even half of what we hear, here.]

I share Hugh's' concerns too.

[PokerChip]

I am still looking for "a well-known" place on the Shaw web site where Shaw can, and will, let us, and everyone else, know, consistently, what is going on: problems, scheduled fixes, updates, outages, new offers, expiration dates for offers, etc.

That place exists, in an even more convenient and logical place. It's is called "messages" on your Shaw digital boxes.

It's unfortunate Shaw has it at its disposal, but won't use it.

Not being facetious, just saying'...

[Torontoblue]

Originally Posted by GWNorth

I'm a little sceptical of a Shaw owned community forum. They have been less than open with information in recent past and their past history with Facebook adds to my scepticism. The Shaw Facebook page used to have a support forum. It was filled with nasty comments from customers after they spent hours waiting to get through on the phones for various issues. In between those threads were a few good tidbits. I reported one bug on the 3400 and had it acknowledged by Shaw (I have never heard of a fix though and that was a long time back). Anyway, for whatever reason, Shaw closed that forum down and asked people to use Twitter instead. I suspect the negative postings were just getting to be too much but we lost the admittedly minimal tidbits of information that were there.

That's not actually the case regards the SHAW page on Facebook.

Facebook, in their wisdom, decided to alter how groups were being run and shut down discussions within groups. Which was very short sighted as some of the SHAW employees in the group were helpful.

[shawsean]

@GWNorth - Torontoblue is correct, it wasn't our choice to shut down Facebook Discussions - Facebook removed the functionality completely from Fanpages and gave us all of a months notice before doing so.

@hugh - Our #1 goal with the Community is to provide another venue for customers to get technical and product support without having to pick up the phone. We're not trying to take anything away from 3rd party sites like Digital Home or DSLR and the independent information they provide consumers.

Hopefully as it grows we'll be better able to provide the information Kritiker mentioned in his post - and just to note, we only asked for an account number so we were better able to contact you, it wasn't mandatory.

Finally, information posted on The Community by Shaw will be accessible to unregistered users no differently than if you were registered. You just won't be able to contribute (reply,like,vote etc.) to the content if you aren't a member.

Cheers.

[Kritiker]

FYI

When registering for the webinar we are asked for some information. I am told:

The postal code is used to make sure we get a good geographic mix of people in the Seed Group. The name is simply so that we can communicate with you by name. If you prefer, please feel free to use a pseudonym to sign-in.

Once you fill out the form, you'll get back a message saying:

Your registration request for this webinar has been submitted to the organizer for approval. You will receive information via email regarding your registration status.

I'm being a bit cautious about what I provide until I see exactly how it will be used, e.g., I don't want my real name being used in the Community.

We'll see if they let me in with what I've provided.