Is it just crowed sourcing being taken to the next level? Or a sad indictment on some companies ability to support their product? Web sites such as getsatisfaction.com and uservoice.com seem to be doing well, they have a lot of users and a lot of answers.
Why is it that people are seeking assistance to their problems via a 3rd party site, and not directly with the product provider?
I think that it is a bit of both. People a seeking responses they can trust, and these sites (using a model very similar to the KCS model) provide quick answers, you can then determine if you trust the answer that someone has given you by looking at their profiles and making a determination if you trust the response or not.
The same principles of crowd sourcing seem to apply here as in other areas, people want to help, and do so with only the desire to help others in mind.
And people want to self serve, just as people will line up in the rain to use a ATM machine, rather then go into a bank branch, many people are happy to source their own answers (and want the ability to do it 24hrs a day).
I am sure there is also a bit of frustration for some involved, where they are unable to source answers from the company supplying the product, and as a last resort are heading to these websites looking for answers (I wonder what the proportion is?). I think however that the majority of users would be using these sites as their first point of contact, rather then as a last resort.
Given 3rd parties are able to provide this sort of a service, it makes me wonder why more companies are not publishing their knowledge to their customers, and facilitating these types of discussions themselves, why give up the customer relationship to a 3rd party?
