The simplest thing you can do is to setup a bulletin board system like pointed out earlier, which can be your first line customer service. This will allow you to participate in the discussion and the whole thread will lead to a solution.

For the information ascertained there, I would like to suggest to set up a wiki because it will allow you to manange and document the incoming data better. Further more, you can point to associated entries/items/posts a lot easier than a bb will allow you to do.

After having completed that, you’ll be in a pretty good fix. Associated to that I would most definitly set up a good working customer service page on your website which will handle incoming tickets. The money saved there (due to the increase in efficiency) can then be spent in integrating better environments.

Regading the blog part: blogs are not really suitable for the environment you are looking for. Primarily because of the fact that comments are most of the time hidden. And you don’t really have an easy way of getting fruitful discussions out of blogs. The commenting sections are hardly made to handle large amounts of replies but more to be there for what they were inveted in the first place – comments Discussions are best lead in discussion forums/bbs. Documentation and management of knowledge etc., in Wikis.

Related posts:

1. BOOK MONDAY: Make your customers do the customer service themselves
2. BOOK MONDAY: Customer Information Management
3. BOOK MONDAY: Learning marketing from the porn industry
4. BOOK MONDAY: What makes Corporate Blogging important?
5. How Online Reputation Management saved Alaska Airlines’ ass