What should be included in your software product forum so that clients can utilize it to the maximum?

Question

My company is planning to start a forum for our software product which the clients can refer for general FAQ's, problems etc.

Right now we are planning to have:-

1. User manuals.
2. Best practices for different section's of the application
3. Frequently faced problems.
4. Forum where user can discuss issues with development team.

Any other ideas?

Edit:-

1. We have RSS and E-mail notification subscription to the forum.

Answer 1

Forum where user can discuss issues with development team.

I don't know if this is a euphemism for "issue tracker" but if not, make sure you include a way for people to submit bug/feature/enhancement reports and track them to completion. Nothing is worse than not being able to submit a bug report or being able to submit a bug report but only into a black hole.

Communication is key.

Answer 2

You.

Show that you care about your customers.

Many useful tips at Creating passionate users blog.

Answer 3

If you add an issue tracker as suggested by Kevin, your list seems pretty ok to me.

I'd also suggest that you do not start out with too many different services that require interaction from your side (e.g. your developers) at first - I've seen (too) many good initiatives die simply because nobody in the company had enough time e.g. for regular answering of the forum questions.

In your case, I guess "best practices", "frequent problems" and the forum will all consume regular time from your dev team if you want to keep them alive and up-to-date, especially in the beginning. So I would not add more services at the beginning but make sure to get these right (and you can always add more services later on if you find that the users need them :-).