Everything in life is better when it’s shared. Our favorite activities are made better by the people who participate in them with us. It makes sense, then, that the community around products and services can make a significant impact on retention and usage. If there is always someone available to help us troubleshoot or collaborate with, our human instinct is to keep coming back to that place and those people.
This is the foundation of customer success (CS).
It is also why CS teams are investing in community engagement platforms. Because the ties that customers make between each other and your company are one of the strongest indicators for retention, expansion, and advocacy.
To help you develop community engagement strategies proven to drive business results your entire organization cares about, we’ve put together a list of real-world examples you can replicate in your own company. These steps, taken individually or together, will help you achieve your goals efficiently (and while having a bit of fun).
Use Community to Share Content and Training
When adopting a new solution, customers don’t know what they don’t know. While onboarding gets them started, the time they spend in-product shows them what is possible. That usually means a higher volume of questions in the months after onboarding finishes.
The longer questions go unanswered, the less value customers will get from your solutions. To ensure users had everything they needed to succeed, companies like Consensus, provide an extensive content library on their community platform that is always available. Today’s customers are eager for self-serve options, particularly when they can follow up with questions to other customers. And the numbers reflect it.
Consensus doubled their content views by creating an easy way for users to engage when they wanted to, cutting down the time-to-value for customers, which helps retention.
It’s likely that your company has a wealth of content ready to be shared. Without a centralized place to put all your different training, videos, and guides, they can go ignored by customers and employees alike. Get instant value out of assets you already have by creating self-service learning paths on your community platform.
Offer Rewards for Engagement from Customers
Much like community, people also love being rewarded for their efforts. Gamification strategies work incredibly well to get customers to engage on your community platform. More importantly, they help users stay engaged over the months (and years) they remain customers.
Netskope used the Gainsight Customer Communities platform to increase community engagement, resulting in a 40% growth in their user base within one year. Whether your company uses a reward system to get users to post content or supply them with the content from your organization, customers get the same benefits.
Remember that power-users can be an invaluable asset when support teams get overwhelmed, so a rewards system doesn’t just reward your customers. It also ensures your internal teams aren’t overworked when your customer base grows.
Expand Your User Base With Conversations
Speaking of supporting internal teams, a community platform can also help communicate helpful strategies and practical tips that most customers have without requiring extra effort from your organization.
Instead of requiring CS teams to explain features and strategies to each new user, the community platform can provide a single source of information that customers can go to whenever they need. Moreover, when people read answers from other customers, they know that they’re learning skills that will apply to their work (or specific use case). Rather than getting the most universal information, they can rely on experienced users to answer specific questions they may have.
At Unqork, this self-service experience, based on collaboration between customers, helped them achieve a 99% reply rate on questions, with over 75% answer rate driven by customers. The time saved by the customer and organization will undoubtedly help drive more success for both teams.
Drive Revenue Growth With Strong Communities
Finally, the reason most organizations find it imperative to invest in community platforms is because it makes good business sense. For example, Oleeo implemented Gainsight Customer Community platform and within the first year saw an estimated ROI of over $245,000. Not only did they drive 4,000 new visitors during the first quarter of use, they also saw a 20% decrease in support inquiries.
Despite an incline in users, the team was actually doing less support work and could focus on the strategies that drive business goals. The efforts of CSMs often follow what a customer base demands. It’s never a bad strategy to meet your customers where they’re at. But in order to grow in a competitive market, companies recognize they have to pivot to more proactive strategies. With community support and engagement off their plate, CSMs can do the important work of growing accounts and encouraging more product adoption. In other words, they can make a bigger impact on your bottom line. A result everyone can agree on.
Try Gainsight Customer Communities Platform Today
Learn more about how you can use Gainsight Customer Communities platform to grow your business. Contact us today to get a comprehensive demo that can help you see these proven strategies come to life.
