14 DAY TRIAL // Zoho has been quiet for the most part of this year. The startup competing with the likes of Google in the web-based office suite market has managed to hold its own and constantly bring out new features and products. Lately though it has focused on integrating the existing products and making them work together more seamlessly. But the new product drought is over and Zoho has just released a new online community application, Zoho Discussions, which lets users easily set up and maintain a web forum for customers or collaboration.
“Providing a great support experience to your customers doesn’t have to mean setting up an expensive call center operation. Instead, it needs to start at your website, where you can provide a great experience to those seeking a little help, while at the same time managing your support costs,” the website set up for the product reads, hinting at one possible application. “But support does not end with you. In fact, you'd be surprised how many customers know more about your own product than your own staff does. Let your customers help out each other.”
The easiest and fastest way of getting a taste of the product is going to Zoho's own web forums, which are in fact powered by Zoho Discussions and have been so for months as the product was developed. The product offers most of the basic functionality you would expect in a discussion forum while also adding some interesting touches. Users can create new threads around a particular subject and post comments if they have something to add but it also has some “Q&A” type features like the possibility to vote on a particular response if users found it more relevant.
The main draw of the new product is the fact that it's relatively easy to deploy and manage, offering the advantages of cloud services like Google Groups, but, unlike Google's offering, it also offers extensive customization options and the possibility to access it from your own domain name. Like all Zoho products, Discussions comes with a free version and then adds features and storage with progressively more expensive offerings.