Robot lords rule the Roomba rooms

Even if you are not a cat, you may be one of the many happy Roomba users, one of the world's most popular robots. But if you have a problem with your Roomba, or any of the many other consumer robots made by iRobot  Corp. of Bedford, Mass., you may get your best support from robot lords and not necessarily iRobot customer support staff.

According to Maryellen Abreu, director of global technical support at iRobot, that's just what the company wants. With over one million hits per month to its customer community site, iRobot's tech support staff couldn't possibly meet the needs of every consumer. That's where the robot lords come to the rescue.

Robot lords are iRobot customers who, apparently, love the company's products so much that they patrol the company's customer community forums to assist users in distress. More important to iRobot than their affection is that robot lords know the ins and outs of products and are happy to share their knowledge, answering questions, giving advice and soothing the feathers of frustrated buyers who visit the virtual rooms looking for help.

Abreu says the robot lords use the social networking forums on iRobot's site provided by Lithium Technologies Inc., a software as a service provider out of Emeryville, Calif. The service lets users rank advice given by other community participants. Those with the highest rankings get a special icon and the robot lord designation.

But only the elite get to be called robot lords, says Jeff Porter, director of business development at Lithium. He says that his company's experience with social networks indicates that only one or two percent in a given community can achieve a "super user" status like the robot lords in the iRobot world.

Naturally, at times, even a robot lord can't answer every question. So, after two days, if a question is not resolved, the Lithium service kicks the query into the tech support queue. At that point, the iRobot staff have an integrated view of the customer's profile through the customer relationship management service from RightNow Technologies Inc. of Bozeman, Mont. They can see what conversations have happened in the social network, what products they have registered as well as any past issues, so the support pro can have an answer ready in the right context.

Abreu says the robot lords have "decreased the call volume to tech support considerably," saving the iRobot money as it has grown its business. She also says that the company would like to move the community support service to other parts of business, such as the military, which uses iRobot machines to thwart terrorist bombers in dangerous parts of the world.

It looks like the domain of the robot lords is destined to expand into new territories.