Build a stronger social relationship that delivers value for both customers and businesses.
If your organization is like many forward-thinking, customer-centric businesses today, you already know that social networks can bolster the visibility of your company. You may even have taken it a step further by incorporating the inquiries and complaints posted on networks like Facebook and Twitter into your contact center’s channel mix.
Digital marketing experts say that it’s important to be in all the places where your customers are searching for information about your products and services. However, if your goal is to drive engagement and retention, cultivating your own branded community can offer more value for both customers and the business.
Online communities have been in use by the high-tech industry for decades—going as far back as 1980 with CompuServe’s CB Simulator online chat service. More recently, though, the desire to be closer to customers has sparked interest in online communities from organizations across sectors. But if your customers are already chatting, connecting and posting their questions on your company’s Facebook page, how does that differ from an online community?
“Social networks are predominantly relationship-oriented. Customers go there to connect with friends, family and work colleagues—people they have relationships with,” explains Rob Howard, vice president and general manager, Social Communities, Verint Enterprise Intelligence Solutions. “They’re used as a relational tool to find information and get recommendations from people who we share interests with and whom we trust.”
Online communities, on the other hand, are purpose-driven. They are created to meet specific objectives, such as providing customer support, or in the case of private communities, creating a safe place for members to come, ask questions, share their own knowledge and experiences, and network with other like-minded individuals and experts.
Over time, online communities that have been developed for purpose-driven experiences undergo a transformation and become more relationship-driven for many users, Howard adds. “Companies end up getting the same benefits as they have with Facebook or Twitter in that users who are experts in your products will frequent the community, become friends with one another and begin sharing experiences.”
Practical pointer:
Customers who are searching online for answers to their questions can end up in a variety of places where they may not get verified solutions that your organization recognizes as the correct way to solve their problem. Howard recommends that companies use social media channels as the first point of engagement with customers, and then send them to the online community for more detailed information. “Try to draw them back into the online community to provide them with a deeper, more meaningful experience, conversation or information that the organization represents as being factually accurate,” he says.
Tapping the Value of Customer Communities
Most early online communities were set up strictly for customers to help other customers, and companies generally took a hands-off approach to discussions that took place on those sites.
“Companies have come to realize that customers are not threatened when employees show up—in fact, they expect you to show up,” says Joe Cothrel, chief community officer at Lithium Technologies, which provides social customer experience management software for the enterprise. “We have seen the percentage of company participation in the community grow over the years,” he adds. “It used to be a single-digit percentage of replies created by an agent. Today, 5% to 30% of replies are provided by agents. Tracking customer satisfaction and NPS reveals that there is a right mix of agent-supplied and customer-supplied answers to hit high marks, and that we need to treat this as a fully fledged channel.”
Vanessa DiMauro agrees. “One of the more obvious positive lifts for an organization happens when customer support and community operations align,” she says. “There is an opportunity to distill the low-complexity issues and put those online so that customers can self-serve. It’s a win for customers, who can find answers to their questions at a time that is most convenient for them. It also frees agents to handle more complex issues, which increases their job satisfaction.” DiMauro is the CEO of Leader Networks, a research and strategy consulting company that helps organizations succeed in social business and online community building.
DiMauro adds that the primary goals for launching customer communities have evolved in recent years. While, in the past, companies were focused on reducing costs or marketing, now communities are closely linked to the organization’s business drivers.
“Innovation is one of the strongest and most fruitful areas for organizations launching customer communities,” she states. “Communities are being used to find patentable ideas, to get ahead of new product and service launches, to find problems or to innovate. They’re even being used as a listening tool to understand customer satisfaction.”
She points to mass media and information firm Thomson Reuters as an example (see the sidebar). Thomson Reuters has rolled out a suite of customer communities around its legal services. During a recent relaunch of a major software platform, the organization turned to its community for customer feedback on the changes and to help customers through the transition.
“The ability to socialize the changes through the community positively impacted the software’s adoption rate, customer satisfaction and the customers’ comfort with the tool,” she says.
Getting Started: Build on a Solid Foundation
As with any customer-centric initiative, launching an online community requires vision, planning, goals, resources and strategy. The following are a few key elements to create a strong foundation for long-term success.
- Executive buy-in. Make sure that you have the support of the right internal stakeholders, says DiMauro. “A community is not an island. It not only touches customer support, marketing and product innovation, it reaches across all lines of the business,” she says. “You need crossfunctional buy-in—everyone has to have a little stake in the game.”
- Clear success metrics that are aligned with business objectives. “Communities need to either accelerate a business process or make something possible that wasn’t easily possible in the past,” DiMauro explains. “When launching a community, you can ensure a positive outcome by aligning it around one or two meaningful business needs with very clear measures and metrics for success.” Once you’ve hit those objectives and developed best practices around those requirements, you can then scale to address other business needs, she adds.
- A platform that integrates with other channel management tools. If customer service is one of your objectives, focus on delivering a seamless cross-channel experience, advises Cothrel. “You need a platform that can support your customers and that plays in a friendly way with other enterprise infrastructures,” he says.
- A crossfunctional team. The size and makeup of your team will depend on how much you want to do in your community. Most community teams start with a relatively small team, Cothrel says, and then the team will scale as the community expands its functionality. For example, team expertise may include customer support, product managers, R&D, a content manager, analysts, etc.
- An experienced community manager. Look for someone with a strong background in community facilitation or management. Keep in mind that there is a difference between social media professionals and community professionals. “Community professionals have a set of disciplines, best practices, frameworks and know-how to scale and align their work to the organization’s needs,” DiMauro says. “Good community professionals are able to ask the types of open-ended questions that help the subject-matter experts articulate why they’re doing something—and do it in a way that helps new customers and learners. When you introduce too much expertise into a community from the company, they make assumptions and use industry lingo. It can run the risk of becoming a dialog of experts to experts without taking into account all levels of education and support.”
- Community guidelines and rules of engagement. Create a set of guidelines and rules that customers must observe, such as be respectful, don’t spam, respect other people’s privacy, don’t harass, etc. Make sure that customers agree to the guidelines when they join. “You also will need processes on the back end for what to do when a customer breaks the rules,” says Cothrel. “Successful communities think through all types of scenarios before launch.”
Three Basic Principles for Long-term Success
In addition to creating a strong foundation prior to launching your community, the following are Howard’s recommendations for long-term success.
- Authentic participation. “We encourage all of our customers to be authentic as they participate in the community—to be themselves,” Howard explains. “Do simple things like updating their profiles, because at the end of the day, we’re all striving to create the relationships around the story that we’re telling in these communities.”
- Create unique and valuable content. Online communities are a great place for customers to ask questions about products, services, problems and concerns, but it shouldn’t be limited to those types of discussions. “Think of it as a place where customers can post unique information that they may not share in other ways,” he says. For example, if the R&D team has an idea for a new product, the community offers a perfect opportunity to share that information and solicit their feedback, whether it’s with the entire community or a select set of customers.
- Recognize customer contributions. When a customer offers a suggestion, make sure that you complete the feedback loop with a response and recognition of the individual’s contribution. “Recognition is an incredibly important part of the success of a community,” Howard says. “It can come in the form of acknowledgment through a reply or through gamification, where customers have the ability to earn badges and earn recognition for sharing their expertise within the community.”
A Starring Role in the Customer Journey
While many of today’s successful communities have earned accolades for their positive impact on specific operational goals, DiMauro sees them becoming an essential function for businesses in the next few years.
“Up to 60% of inquiries and business decisions are made without first contacting the organization,” she says. “Customers use search, they Google, they talk to peers, they visit websites. Communities have an opportunity to play a starring role in the beginning of the customer journey. What is better from a prospective customer’s viewpoint than seeing how an organization interacts with its customers?”
THOMSON REUTERS: Creating a Thriving B2B Community
The Legal Solutions business of Thomson Reuters has been enjoying considerable success with its Small Law Firm Legal Professional Online Community since its launch in May 2015. The private online community is dedicated to legal professionals at small law firms (approximately 30 or fewer attorneys).
The community offers great value to its members, says Community Manager & Senior Director of Strategic Marketing Michelle Wildenauer. It’s a place where customers can collaborate with experts from Thomson Reuters and its partners, find best practice insights and interpretation on law, as well as custom content and commentary. Another important benefit is the opportunity to network and gain referrals.
“The information within the community helps the members to work smarter and faster, and the collaboration allows them to improve their visibility both on a personal level and for their firms. It enhances their overall ability to succeed,” she says.
In less than a year, about 1,000 customers have joined the community and it’s continuing to grow—but success didn’t happen by chance. The program was the result of much foresight, careful planning and testing. A pilot program, along with qualitative customer research, provided Wildenauer with early information about customers’ wants, needs and expectations for the community. Once launched, she continued to collect regular feedback about content and business needs, as well as the pain points that customers were looking to solve within the community.
Community Engagement: Keep it Simple, Convenient and Comfortable
Joining the community is a convenient and simple process. It’s visibly promoted within Westlaw, Thomson Reuters’ online legal research platform. Customers can automatically enroll with just a few clicks and ask questions while conducting their research.
Once customers are enrolled in the community, Wildenauer has several processes in place to engage them from the start. New members are welcomed into the community and provided with basic instructions on how to work within the community, such as how to post, how to reply to a post, how to generate private one-on-one communications, and how to follow specific topics or people.
“We start out in very safe ways,” Wildenauer explains. “We will post some type of content, such as an industry update or technology trend, and we will try to pull our customers into that conversation by inviting them to respond. That’s the safest way for them to start participating within the community. Then, as their comfort level increases, we will often see them posting their own information, comments and questions.”
Keeping the conversations flowing is critical to ensure that the community will thrive. Wildenauer has engaged internal and external experts to ensure that content is always fresh and relevant, and that members are involved.
For instance, a curator program enlists internal subject-matter experts as well as some external partners (e.g., attorney-editors). “These individuals have agreed to lead discussions and to provide valuable content to make sure that we have the right level of activity in the program,” she says. “We are also developing an ambassador program, which is a customer-facing program. We will be identifying some of our top community members—those who have a large following within the community or in their professional lives—who will serve as role models, and provide other customers with the comfort and example that they need.”
Top Factors for Community Success
What are some of the best practices to take away from Thomson Reuters’ community experience? Understand that launching and managing a community requires ownership, executive support and a dedicated team, says Wildenauer. “The reality is that we are building one-on-one relationships with some of our best customers. It’s important to take that seriously, and to make sure that the community is staffed so that it can be a powerful tool,” she says.
Also, keep in mind that a community is a deep-rooted commitment and it will take time to get results—think in terms of years, not months. “It is definitely a journey,” she notes. “It takes a couple of years to ensure that customers are brought into the program, that they feel comfortable engaging in it, and to build a long-term relationship.”
There are additional factors that Wildenauer considers to be key contributors to the community’s success:
- It is convenient to use—the community is integrated into the customer’s workflow.
- It is a private community that is exclusive to Thomson Reuters’ customers.
- It provides a safe environment for members to communicate and network. Members can conduct private one-on-one conversations with others in the community.
- It is moderated by Thomson Reuters’ legal experts who facilitate the conversations and contribute content.
“We see the community as a value-add for our customers,” Wildenauer says. “We believe that the community is core to our long-term strategy and we’ll continue to track its impact as we further develop the program.”
Additional Resources
Leader Networks
(www.leadernetworks.com )
Leader Networks is a strategic research and consulting firm that helps organizations develop social business strategies, create and grow online communities, and lead social marketing strategies and operations.
Verint
(www.verint.com/communities )
Verint offers communities as part of a comprehensive platform with ties to engagement management, customer analytics and workforce optimization. Using Telligent’s solution, organizations can uniquely provide actionable intelligence across customers’ omnichannel experiences to include voice, chat, email, web self-service, and customer and employee communities.
- Verint Communities (http://bit.ly/1pLjEjO )
- Telligent Community datasheet (http://bit.ly/26yj6Q8 )
- “Drive Deeper Customer Engagement with Customer Communities,” by Rob Howard, published in Pipeline, December 2015
(
http://bit.ly/1NLDVMq )
Lithium
(www.lithium.com ) Lithium builds trusted relationships between the world’s best brands and their customers, helping people get answers and share their experiences.
- Creating a Total Community Approach to Customer Experience (http://bit.ly/1VxFaGR )
- Community Case Studies:
Autodesk (
http://bit.ly/1NtqZ2G ): peer-to-peer support network saves company $6.8 million annually Barclaycard (
http://bit.ly/1SZWZb3 ): increased customer retention, decreased customer complaints, $10 million realized annually AT&T (
http://bit.ly/21csvst ): 2015 Lithy Award Winner—support savings at $30 million, deflected over 4 million calls
- Blog: Community Management: An Emerging Discipline, a New Certification (http://bit.ly/1VxFtS6 )
- Blog: Community Manager Certification I: Online Training
(
http://bit.ly/1ruvBML )