Q&A forums are a nice addition to a Web site if they are sufficiently promoted, monitored closely, and made easy to navigate. I would guess that 9 out of 10 online forums fail on one or more of these counts. A poorly done forum is worse than no forum at all; so if you go down this road, make sure you’ve put the resources in place to keep it moving. Here are the keys to a good forum:

•  Sustained online and offline publicity to attract an audience of posters, especially at the beginning.
•  Enlisting a few sympathetic and/or articulate customers to make initial posts.
•  Seeding the forum with provocative discussion topics.
•  Creating “events” with virtual visits by experts or local celebrities to answer questions. Netscape posts interviews with experts to spark online forum participation
•  Monitoring the postings daily to immediately resolve any concerns related to the bank and remove spam or vandalism. As an early-warning system, you might want to have an email generated to a bank officer each time a new post is submitted.