Community Strategy as part of Customer Success: What's yours?
Do you have an active Community, and is it part of your Customer Success strategy?
The key to its success is making sure that every customer and critical partner has automatic access; much like the unobstructed view of the gorgeous Mendenhall Glacier (below, which I visited a few years ago and snapped this photo), nothing should stand in the way of a clear view and easy entry into your Community; access needs to be easy, integrated into your product (if possible) and a made a simple part of the current workflow.
Experience has taught me that asking users to join, setting up a unique username and password, and taking time out to gain access will hurt Community adoption rates and hamper your ability to utilize your Community fully.
When access is simple and unobstructed, watch as your Community flows with activity takes off, and becomes a key part of your Customer Success strategy. (And watch renewal, ARR, and NPS rates all increase.)
Comments
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@Brian O'Keeffe - I love this! Removing friction for users is critical for any process, but for something like a community, it moves into a different realm.
Some of the ways I have done this in the past include:
- Reaching out to key users and asking if any step of the process irritates them
- I also ask internal team members (especially those who are not familiar with the platform yet) to go in and do a bit of a scavenger hunt for areas. I usually use a feedback tool to capture insights (Did this work? Y/N If no, what happened)
We can become very site blind due to having created the site and our constant immersion in it. Reaching out to get feedback from those who are NOT living in the community is vital to make sure we are not glossing over areas that prevent our members from achieving their goals.
I will say that having some login barriers to engagement such posting and such can really 1) cut down on SPAM and 2) allow for better usage metrics. But make it SSO with your other products to reduce that friction point!
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@Heather Wendt, SSO is ideal but not always possible.
One strategy was automatic additions via an upload (this has to be very carefully thought out and avoid default profile settings that generate alerts), and it works when it is synching another business tool account that you manage. In my example, users with access to the support portal were uploaded to the community.
A more guerilla strategy was manually adding every user as they were onboarded. It was not ideal, but it worked much better than a separate invitation to join. Then, link them directly to the right thread or documents in the community. Example: What's ___? Answer: That came up recently, and here (link) is the answer. Encouraging them to add comments to the thread vs responding to you. Even when they did respond to me, I added it to the thread, answered it in the thread, and then linked the answer. Never respond: go to the community! Always a gentle push and a good customer experience.
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Well isn't that special? I can only blame my brain returning from a vacation status (not a coffee drinker, so maybe the lack of caffiene as well??) Fixed that incorrect tag...lol
Yes, for anyone with a product, there are some great ways to get folks going. I was lucky enough with a previous role that part of the onboarding was submitting a list of all employees which then went into our database, automatically creating a user account in the community. That is definitely not the norm, and I love your creative ideas about using other triggers to ease the journey.
And YES! Don't make it frustrating with a general 'go to community' message. Take the extra moment and gently bring them along using direct links to make life easier...for common questions, create a template message so you aren't having to recreate the wheel each time. Thanks Brian (the right one. this time!)
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Being obsessed with customer experience and sensitive to it is a key to success in this field.
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Hi Apologize but I am not clear when you say community strategy. Is it a client forum you are referring to? Overall I agree with you and @Heather Wendt that reducing friction is super important be it main product or additional logins.
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Community strategy = on-line forum for your users to share best practices, engage directly or with your subject matter experts, and more.
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Because I've mostly worked with startups in the past, I found that our team was not very open to the community approach due to the product not being mature enough. Also, in cases when the pricing of the product is subjective in a B2B environment, there could be issues if you pool all your clients together.
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I would challenge that common belief. Community is a way to become closer to your customers faster, get real-time feedback, and remove many blinders that are so common in start-ups so you can build a better product. So much time is wasted on features and functions no one uses or wants. (Think of Apple adding adding sending texts with emotions! Or almost all of Siri.)
The pricing part is another one that I have heard and learned that, yes, some might share info or compare, but it tends to be much less of an issue than we suspect.
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@Felix I would agree with @Brian O'Keeffe here. While community use by start-ups isn't a strongly embraced pathway (yet(, he is spot on with why it should be!
With a new product you are trying to meet needs of customers while understanding areas that are not working the way you planned. They are often spending a lot of time trying to pull current and potential customers together to get feedback, understand needs, etc.
A community allows you to do this while you are also building brand loyalty through onboarding and product education to provide help when they need it.
Done well, the start up that prioritizes a way to create relationships with their customer and potential customer base is one that is going to have a foundation others are missing.
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I shared the same advice with them, but they were not interested in implementing any changes. Customer Success is still relatively new, and many people remain attached to the product era and customer support mindset.
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@Felix unfortunately you are not alone in this. It is growing in consideration, but there are still so many who have a very narrow view of what a community is. I know Customer Success has gone through (and is sometimes still going through) that recognition of value gap.
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I agree. Communities are beneficial, but in many cases, as an employee or contributor, you can only make suggestions. The places I've worked at in the past were resistant to implementing a community or pooling their customers together. They even kept their pricing hidden, lacking transparency. But anyway, that's in the past. I've moved on to better opportunities. But I'm just saying that there's the odd company out there that doesn't like these things.
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Communities are exceptionally valuable when done well. But they aren't a 'if you build it they will come' scenario. The reasons for joining, information provided, and overall return on their experience has to be compelling. It requires constant attention to the community. It's really hard to dip your toe in the water, so to speak, and see if it works. My experience is that building, launching, promoting, and ultimately preserving and engaging community requires 100% commitment (ie, resources and patience, both of which are often in short supply). If you are going to do it, make it a focal point of the entire customer experience.
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The situation is improving. As we completely transition into a subscription-based digital economy, there will be a better understanding of customer success. Additionally, our suggestions, when supported by improved data, are likely to be more well-received.
Many companies hire customer success reps without empowering or fully understanding their role. However, let's move forward. 🚀
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@Andrew Shoaff that is my favorite quote when it comes to community!! And you are exactly right. If you are going to invest in community, you have to actually INVEST in it, and that means at least 1 dedicated person (community manager) who's entire role is to continuously adapt and improve the experience, educate internal teams on the value it brings to them, and advocate for tech support and additional staff as warrented. Without that tireless advocate, you end up with a missed opportunity for true impact. And yes! Community as a hub is where that value is going to be maximized!
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You nailed it. I have seen failure after failure with the Field of Dreams approach. Followed by the knee-slapping of I told you so by all the doubting Thomases.
The key is how you present it. In my most recent example, I explained it would take a year, plus dedicated resources assigned to the community, before it took off and showed value. I got a perplexed response from one C-suite executive, but you could have it up in a week?! They wanted to see a return next week.
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I would add that you need to let go of the fear of blurring the lines. Think of the community as a landing pad, the destination for your customers who come in and need to be guided to the right place at the right time for the right issue. I have seen a mentality that it's not my job, so the support issue never makes it to support seamlessly, or the complete refusal by a team to participate in any way, slow down, or kill momentum. When a customer comes in and can't find what they need, are told to open a support ticket, or the community process becomes a hassle, they are out, and they are not likely to come back.
Think of your community team and every key partner as brand ambassadors. What is the best experience for this customer at this time? With that approach, every user will get VIP treatment. As you mature, you identify those paths, forums, or ways to get customers where they need to automatically, but it will take time and the community strategy is always a work in progress.
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Anyone who thinks that the Field of Dreams approach is easy should read the short story the film was based on, "Shoeless Joe." It took the main character about three years to build the field because he had to learn what goes into making a major league baseball field.
For example, he had to learn about various aspects of groundskeeping, including:
- Soil composition and preparation.
- Grass variety selection suited for playing fields.
- Mowing patterns and frequencies.
- Watering schedules and drainage systems.
- Leveling and rolling techniques to ensure a flat playing surface.
Community takes work, planning, and perseverance. It is not for the faint-hearted or something to be sluffed off to interns.
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As a small business, we organise a Hybrid event once a year.
Our existing customers are invited through our Saas platform or personally by the CS team.
We do not advertise it on Linkedin or send any automated invitations.
The event is strictly for existing customers and no potential customers are invited.
We have a rough agenda and customers share stories and how they interact with our product.
Keeping it authentic and not a sales or marketing event is key. The interactions and knowledge we get from these events is priceless.
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I like that and have done something similar. We had an annual conference and invited all community members, and we had a special reception and events just for them. I went out of my way to talk about it in the community, send direct invitations to specific users, and even promote the conference on Linkedin. On the event floor, I overheard someone asking a booth member where I was! Success! As I walked the floor, I was stopped repeatedly, and people talked to me like they knew me. I get what a celebrity experiences now!
The special events just for community members allowed us to acknowledge them directly and work directly with our most dedicated users on improving and helping to grow the community.
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Love it and it nails it.
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@Brian O'Keeffe I'm in the process of readying a Community at my company, currently in the throes of research and I found your comment about a year to be interesting. Can you recommend any resources that will help me outline the value prop and the timeline until value is recognized? Appreciate any insight you might be able to share!
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@Angie B - The Community Launch Guide from Common Room may be a good resource for you.
I want to point out one thing. You also asked, "... until value is recognized?" That's a tricky one to answer. It's like comparing music genres. Before you start, you need to know if the Powers-That-Be will be happy with music or if they want Rock or Country. Then, find out how much of it they want.
And then, to top it all off, it can take a long, long time before the business sees the results they're looking for. I'm not sure how to say this properly (aka not scary), but it can take more than a year before you start seeing cold, hard numbers supporting a community's existence. That does not mean the community isn't valuable to the business, but capturing that value on paper can be hard.
Here are some more recommendations for you.
- In Before the Lock podcast.
- Carrie Melissa Jones YouTube channel.
- The Art of Gathering: How We Meet and Why It Matters book by Priya Parker. That's her website, not an Amazon link. It looks like she's got a course and some other stuff. The book is short and enjoyable.
- Community Strategy Academy - Many of these courses are free.
If you have any other community questions, you can hit me up or start a new thread.
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Congratulations! We are in a similar line of business! :) Piper shared a lot of what I would add. It is tough to show quantifiable value quickly, and communities take time before they will. I told a C team that once, they gasped, and one responded, but you can have it up in a week! The disconnect between expectations and reality is great.
In my experience, the launch is followed by a period of developing engagement, and you must focus on that ferociously. Every day, every hour, think: what can we do to get people active in the community? What's mapped out at launch needs to be flexible, and here are a few key ways to accomplish that:
All users need automatic access. Inviting users to "join" is inane and will slow engagement. Find a way (even if it is manual) to give everyone you need in there to have automatic access.
All partners and SMEs need access and have a stake in the community. This is by far THE HARDEST part of every community launch I have participated in. I don't have time, it's not my job, etc. Many internal key partners will not want anything to do with it. Part of it is the public exposure that is not natural or uncomfortable. No one should be punished or shamed for mistakes, not knowing something, or even posting an incorrect update. For example, the entire training team must be in there, all product managers (and be warned, this is NOT EASY), and pick and choose your battles. The community needs to be the front end of the org. Everything needs to revolve around it: training, product updates, routine communications, outages, and tracking of issues, other updates, events, etc... I used naughty methods like adding all of them to the community and then emailing them links to updates to seed initial engagement. I took what would have been an email exchange before community (something like: John from Company noted here (hyperlink) that they had a problem-see hyperlink for details). If they responded via email, I proxied in and answered as them. (Yes, naughty, but it worked!) Over time, there was no need for such silliness, but initially, it was needed.
Reward your community champions lavishly! Customers and participating partners need to be publicly and frequently rewarded and acknowledged. Internally, we had their names and photos published regularly, along with the reward. This made a statement to the entire org. Customers who were super users were praised, and were given gift card rewards and public marketing pieces that thanked them. Added bonus: you will find a bounty of advocates for your reference program! We grew ours exponentially, and it ended up being one of my favorite parts of the job.
Good luck, and I'm happy to set up a time after the holidays to speak directly. Best of luck! This is my favorite topic!
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