Cireson is an established leader in IT Service and Asset Management solutions for Microsoft System Center Service Manager and Configuration Manager. As a leading consultant on the System Center platform, Cireson is recognized for its high-quality expertise and providing clients with the resources they need to achieve success.
The support team at Cireson spent a good portion of their time answering hundreds of support tickets a week, often with the same types of frequently asked questions.
Price and the ability to customize the community to fit the Cireson brand, vision and personality led the search for the perfect vendor, leading them directly to Vanilla.
Cireson's effective phased approach to the launch granted customer access incrementally. This created hype and allowed Cireson to gather and implement feedback a long the way.
The Cireson community was able to deflect over 90% of support tickets, and quickly became a place where customers gathered to share knowledge and product ideas.
So then I just ended up having to basically copy and paste the same response to hundreds of tickets, and it was taking up a good portion of my day. 
Although Cireson already had a knowledge base, it didn't subside the amount of support tickets being logged, and they continued to be bombarded by frequently asked questions (FAQs). Joe's manager wanted to find Cireson a solution that could enable customers to easily search and find the most common types of support questions. They took a good look at Microsoft and found that their customer community was the cornerstone of their support efforts. Cireson wanted to be able to create the same type of experience for their customers, but with their own unique brand personality.
And so, Joe was given the task to browse the different types of branded community solutions available and select the best one for their unique customer needs.
“Ideation was incredibly important to us, and Vanilla had just launched this feature, [so we took advantage of it.]”
“We needed a way to engage customers and compel them to participate while making it fun at the same time—Vanilla gamification helped us get there.”
“Vanilla allowed us to customize our community beyond what was offered by other vendors, which was super important to us.”
“Of all the vendors we looked at, Vanilla offered the best price for the best value, so choosing Vanilla was a really easy decision.”
Vanilla Forums offered a scalable solution that was able to deflect over 90% of our support tickets. Not only that, but the community has grown into something that Joe and his team didn't expect. The community that began as a support-based community has morphed into a hybrid community, where it's now known as "the-go-to-place" for Cireson customers to share their knowledge and show others what they've done with the product.
As Joe explains, "The community grew into more than just a support community—it turned into a place where customers can show off what they've done with the Cireson product, how they've customized it and how far you can take it." Additionally, the community has empowered customers by providing them with a platform to engage by sharing and voting on product ideas. This has allowed Cireson to focus their time and energy on developing the features that matter most to their customers.
As it turns out, the Cireson community was not only successful at addressing the immediate need to deflect support tickets, but it has also proven itself to be a long term, sustainable solution. As Joe explains, "We launched this community in 2017, and now in 2020, our community is able to maintain itself. We've got a few community advocates out there that help us out, and all-in-all, our community is now self-sufficient."