Community Relations and Outsourcing – A Marriage of Convenience

Metaverse’s Rich Weil delivered a presentation yesterday at GDC-Europe entitled “Community Relations and Outsourcing – A Marriage of Convenience.

The question: Is Community Relations a dearly held company value or an annoyingly necessary cost center? Why not both? The practice of community relations in almost any organization can be a mix of crucial, high-level engagement with customers and also a daily grind of menial tasks. The marriage of an internal community relations team with outsourced staff can be a happy one, but even a “marriage of convenience” requires effort. This panel will explore the details of what goes into making a harmonious union of internal and outsourced community relations efforts.

Takeaway: Attendees learned, from both the company and vendor perspectives, the advantages, disadvantages and best practices regarding joining an outsourced team to an existing internal company community relations organization. Topics included selecting the right vendor, defining the relationship, contract negotiations and pitfalls, establishing and maintaining productive communications, and metrics reporting and conflict resolution. Check out the slides below: