Customer engagement is the cornerstone of customer success strategies. Aside from being an indicator of customer retention, engaging customers will allow you to get feedback about your product and share best practices.
However, it is essential to note that driving customer engagement doesn’t happen overnight, and there are many ways to do it. CS managers have plenty on their to-do lists, from improving product adoption to facilitating customer support. Wouldn’t it be great if the role of the CS manager could be even more efficient?
The answer lies in online communities. CS managers can consolidate their tasks by shifting from one-to-one to many-to-many communication through communities. Creating a community can improve customer service, streamline communication, analyze customer data, and boost adoption.
Customer success managers have almost all the support they need to cement a profitable customer lifecycle with the community’s support. Still not convinced? As part of the customer success strategy, FLOOR will dig into the four key reasons why community is so important.
How does an online community support customer success?
Increasing brand awareness, understanding customers, improving outcomes, and building brand loyalty depend on the community for successful companies, especially tech companies.
1. Communities centralize all your communication and content
Reaching all their customers at once is now possible for customer success managers in a community. One-to-many, many-to-many, and one-to-one relationships can be facilitated, and the inefficient one-to-one relationship can be eliminated.
A community is convenient for sharing company webinars, podcasts, product education materials, and product updates. All your content in one easy-to-find place makes it easier for your customers to learn how to use your products. You can reduce churn by giving your customers more value by understanding your services.
2. Communities create organic user-generated content.
Your community members can now leverage everything they post within your community. You can leave testimonials, ask questions, and spark debates about your favourite product features. All that content is a goldmine that can be reorganized into a knowledge base, FAQ, or dedicated area for product tips and tricks.
Content managers and companies cannot create the same volume of content on their own. As a bonus, that content will remain available in your community as evergreen content.
3. Communities bridge the gap between CS leaders and the customer
A community allows CS managers to form closer relationships with a broader group of customers. Consumers are interested in discovering who is behind the company and developing a connection with them.
A humanizing approach will help break down the communication barrier between the company and lower-tier customers. Your employees can utilize multiple touchpoints to establish meaningful connections through online communities.
4. Communities open the doorway for support
There is nothing better than having a support group in your life, especially when trying out a fresh product or service for the first time. You may need to provide more in-depth product support to your newer customers. A community enables new customers to connect naturally with more experienced ones, improving customer support.
A global customer community can benefit from the mentorship of experienced customers. Throughout the community, you’ll see members answering questions, initiating discussions, and taking on leadership roles. Customer support can be costly, especially for smaller companies, so this is an excellent way to provide excellent customer service at a lower price.
5. Communities create organic support channels
Are you aware that peers can answer 50% of customer service questions? Support channels cannot always be available 24 hours a day. Customers may turn to the community when your staff cannot answer a question. It is crucial for smaller teams that serve global customers.
It may be frustrating for members to wait for a response from staff or support, but a self-service forum has all the answers they need right there. Additionally, it reduces the number of support tickets. The company can then add those questions to its product resources and make them available in the community as evergreen content.
6. Communities are a treasure chest of customer data
Customer success communities are a place to gather information and data regarding the performance of your products and services. CS managers can identify user frustrations and friction points by analyzing community discussions.
The key to a successful SaaS business is to embrace customer feedback. By incorporating unique customer insights into your product and service offerings, you can increase the retention of your customers.
7. Communities lead to more customer renewals
Common, a community-led company, claims online communities unlock data necessary to secure renewals. Success teams use renewals to predict a product’s long-term stability. By calculating which renewals come from active community members versus non-community members, we can gain valuable insight into the customer experience.”
Communities let customer success managers evaluate customer health, so they can intervene if necessary. A CS manager can intervene if a member has posted about needing support or their participation or engagement has slowed. Customer service managers can more efficiently renew customers by using community tools and information.
8. Communities enhance product adoption
Make sure you pool the resources of your community when developing features.
Run feedback campaigns in your community, allow users to request features, and let other users upvote and downvote them. The company will gain clarity on how to optimize its product roadmap as a result. Additionally, you can invite some super users to exclusive community spaces for brainstorming and sharing their ideas.
Communities can also offer valuable insights into how your customers use your products if you ask for them. By encouraging users to share their insights about products, CS managers can help other users see the value behind them.
9. Communities master the customer lifecycle
Community management simplifies the CS manager’s efforts to maintain customers and streamline the customer lifecycle. Providing a better customer experience with the help of your community will increase customer satisfaction and loyalty.
Community management makes communication easier for CS managers, allowing multiple touchpoints with customers. The more you can develop a closer relationship with your customer, the more likely they will stay with your company.
10. Communities offer a higher value proposition
Your community is more than a place to advertise your company’s products. In addition to providing you with new connections, customer support, product knowledge, career development, and even greater value than you could imagine, it also benefits your community.
The more value your company provides your customers, the more likely they will stay in your ecosystem. Long-term, sustainable customer loyalty starts with a well-designed community.
Conclusion
The purpose of communities is to scale customer success programs efficiently and cost-effectively. Customer engagement and retention can be increased, communication can be streamlined, and close relationships with your staff can be supported.
Creating a community is hard, but your business will benefit from brand ambassadors, reduced customer churn, and more significant monetary opportunities.
The most important benefit of a community lies in its ability to extend your company’s customer lifecycle and enhance your value proposition.
0 Comments