Expert Program
Caring.com’s experts provide direct answers to visitors’ questions about aging and eldercare. Experts commit to answering one or two questions a week, and most are not compensated for their time. A few experts regularly answered the questions assigned to them, but many lacked motivation and would stop posting answers within a few months of signing on with the program.
Solution
I set up a database to track all experts, both active and inactive. After reviewing recent expert answers and contacting several experts, we discovered the following issues:
- Some experts had stopped receiving notifications for new questions due to a technical glitch.
- Many experts didn’t understand how to craft a good answer or weren’t sure how to post their answers on the site.
- Several experts were inappropriately promoting their services and publications within their answers.
I set up a training program and documented the processes for bringing a new expert on board, describing everything from the questions to ask during the initial phone call with a new candidate to the technical process of setting up a new expert’s account. New experts received editorial and technical training calls along with quick reference guides they could refer back to.
I also created clear, written guidelines on how and when experts could promote their services or publications on Caring.com. To make the program enticing to new experts, I made a point of including links to the experts’ websites in the short bios that appear at the top of each of their answers.
I also changed the experts’ workflow process so that they could easily find all of the program documentation and see all of the unanswered questions assigned to them, ensuring that questions didn’t fall through the cracks.
Result
By creating scalable, documented processes, I improved the quality and quantity of expert answers on Caring.com. At the end of the four-month project we saw the following results:
- Brought 27 new experts on board.
- Re-trained 12 experts who needed guidance or had dropped out.
- Only 7% of the questions submitted to Caring.com went unanswered because we didn’t have an expert available.