We all have expectations of service when we pay for something, right? Go to even a moderately priced restaurant like Outback Steakhouse and you expect to be served well. If you purchase a computer online from Dell, you want to be taken care of if something doesn’t work. And if you pay dues to your professional association, you expect a level of service to match the cost. So, how does free membership in a community alter our expectations? Should we expect the same level of service for something that we pay no money to support?

I offer two cases: Twitter and Facebook. When things blow up on either of these services, do we as users have any right to demand quick, speedy or personal support? We don’t give one dime for the ability to communicate and expand our networks. The cynical among us might even suggest that we users are really just leaching off of both Twitter and Facebook for our own gain. So if we don’t pay anything for these services, what right do we have to express outrage when we’re met with failwhales, questionable changes to terms of service or disabled features?

This is the conundrum facing most online community managers: delivering service in an age where its expected even on free sites. Perhaps the solution here is that we have to change our ideas of what defines a relationship. We can no longer strictly use the financial transaction as a point for determining service level. Since users bring value to the community through their interactions, it seems that we community management professionals need to adjust our own thinking. That failwhale impacts a user’s overall experience which, in turn, impacts the service’s brand. It’s a rippling effect that defines a daily reality for online communities.

Thoughts?