Support/Goals/2012Q2/retaining contributors
Contents
Onboarding and Retaining New Contributors
- Purpose
- Retain contributors and make the transition easy from new contributor to a "mature" one. This needs to be tailored for all our contributor groups (Help Forum, KB etc).
- Goal
- Establish a step-by-step onboarding process that will help us grow our contributor community by retaining the new ones.
- Outcome
- A plan with all the actions that need to be done from the moment a new contributor is onboarded up to the moment he can be considered mature.
Program Description
We are going to onboard new contributors according to the New Contributor Workflow Chart. We are following 4 onboarding stages: Introduction, Education, Growth and Graduation.
Introduction
This stage starts with the moment the contributor expresses his interest in getting involved. Our purpose is to introduce him to Mozilla and our mission and make him feel welcome. This stage works as follows:
1. New contributor expresses interest 2. SUMO team sends welcome email :
- If account is created - move to stage 2 Education
- If no account is created - send follow-up email
Education
This stage is meant to familiarize the contributor with the SUMO community and educate him in order to make his first contributions.
1. SUMO team sends 2nd email, introduces newbie on contributor forum, introduces him to all resources and assigns a buddy to help him get through his first week. We then monitor his activity for a week.
- If contributors moves to Level 0 on Activity Index - move to stage 3 Growth
- If contributor moves to Level 1 on Activity Index - celebrate Top Newbie (call out on contributor forum, SUMO meeting, blog post)
- If no activity - follow up email
Growth
This stage is meant to continue the education started in stage 3 in order for the contributor to gain confidence and grow into getting more involved in different areas of SUMO.
1. SUMO team sends 3rd email, answers any questions the contributor might have, encourages him to participate on contributor forums and introduces new tasks (e.g. if contributor has been answering on AoA we introduce him to the Support Forum) . We again monitor his activity for a week.
- If contributors stays on Level 0 on Activity Index - move to stage 4
- If contributor moves to Level 1 on Activity Index - celebrate Top Newbie (call out on contributor forum, SUMO meeting, blog post)
- If no activity - follow up email
Graduation
This is the final stage of the new contributor process. At the end of this stage the newbie can graduate into a full "mature" contributor that can
1. Sumo team sends 4th email, answers any questions, assigns new tasks, encourage him to participate on contributor forums
- If contributors stays Level 0 or more on Activity Index - have a graduation party (call out new graduates on contributor forum, SUMO meeting, blog post)
- If no activity - follow up email
Documentation
- Email templates: (support forum, KB, L10N, AoA)
- Resources PDF
- Activity Index
- Presentation
Tracking and Measuring Success
We will be tracking new contributor progress using Monitoring Spreadsheet
Next Steps
- track and monitor all new contributors using the Monitoring Spreadsheet
- measure retention on a monthly basis (how many contributors graduated in July, August, September)