The goal of customer service and support groups is to provide the best quality service in the most cost-effective, efficient way possible. Both publishing and transaction web applications enable customer service and support departments to share customer and problem information, creating a coordinated support system. Such applications enable team members to:
Community applications enable service and support staff to delve more deeply into specific issues. Threads provide a forum for detailed discussion of underlying factors in a recurrent customer problem and for an exchange of experience of what has succeeded or failed in addressing a problem. In addition, newsgroups alert staff assigned to particular accounts of changes or other important information.