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
    ---><---

    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.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using 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.