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In part one of our recap we learned the many great ways that customer communities can benefit organizations, provided that they add value and allow opportunities for real engagement and include everyone, from employees to stakeholders in the process. In part two, we explore the challenges in growing and engaging communities. Don't be scared, our participants also helped us learn how to overcome them.
Customer Community Challenges
For as many benefits there are for communities, there are also many challenges. The potential for inactivity, customer hijacking and lack of quality relationships are always present. Additionally, the amount of time needed to maintain an engaged customer community can easily overwhelm an organization if they're not wholly invested. Furthermore, the quest for original and engaging content is ongoing.
Being able to put all the pieces together can help sustain and maintain communities, but if any piece is out of place, the risk of losing everything you've built can increase.
[View the story "Q5. List the 3 biggest challenges to running a successful customer community. " on Storify]Q5. List the 3 biggest challenges to running a successful customer community.
Storified by CMSWire.com· Fri, Apr 26 2013 09:24:40
Q5. Community highjacking, catching sentiment and bandwidth to monitor #CxmchatSteve Gass
Q5 1. Not having the time to give it proper attention 2. having the right team to support it #Cxmchat twubs.com/CxmchatBarb Mosher Zinck
Q5. Community highjacking, catching sentiment and bandwidth to monitor #CxmchatSteve Gass
A5 Funding, champion, commitment/time #cxmchatZena Weist
A5 1) time 2) leaders 3) time #CxmchatChristian Buckley
Q5: Defining what success looks like for the entire business #CXMCHATtrobbins
Q5 I think it is hard for many orgs to find their voice. That requires you to have a point of view and put yourself out there. #cxmchatBrian Johnson
Q5 Social is not an inexpensive endeavor. Resource intensive. Limited control. Silos in tech and orgs create a poor customer exp. #cxmchatTatiana Mejia
A5 - Com challenges? It takes Time, Strong Leadership and the whole company needs to be behind a community. Don't underestimate. #cxmchatCurtis Gross
#cxmchat Q5: Burn out, buy in and a maintaining a stream of value. Otherwise known as plate spinning. :)Megan Murray
Q5 Belief that if you build it they will come. Community=hard work so get ready to roll up ur sleeves. Loyalty & Advocacy is earned #Cxmchathenrymin
Q5 #1 overcoming confusion of purpose between social media and social communities. see pic bit.ly/17SL9Zb #cxmchatRob Howard
A5. Time, commitment, and most importantly if you don't know how to listen, you're outta luck. #CXMChatLexie Forman Ortiz
Q5 Another big challenge is putting all community efforts on one person, the CM. For it to really work, the org needs to be social. #cxmchatBrian Johnson
Q5 social communities are purpose-built to achieve measurable objectives and outcomes #cxmchatRob Howard
A5 it takes consistency. Honestly, this is one place where volume is as important as quality #CxmchatChristian Buckley
#cxmchat Q5: Keeping the engagement, tactical and tool strategies aligned. Challenges for any biz.Megan Murray
Q5 #2 overzealous community managers that don't let community take some ownership #cxmchatRob Howard
Q5 First be clear. Are they customers you are engaging or people you want to convert into customers? Be genuine and clear w/intent #Cxmchathenrymin
Q5: Shifting mindsets re: value; limited budget; poorly defined #metrics that don’t align with #business goals. #cxmchatcreatorbase
Q5 #3 community that is an island with too much friction #cxmchatRob Howard
Q5 social communities are not a destination & must be part of customer journey #cxmchatRob Howard
Q5 Another challenge. Content. Talk will only get you so far. Working with other teams to generate good content can be hard. #cxmchatBrian Johnson
Q5 Reliance on automation tools, Understaffing, Not staffing with Sr staff members or subject matter experts #Cxmchathenrymin
A5 If you have a shared understanding of what the community is trying to do, content and leadership will follow #CxmchatChristian Buckley
A5 recognize that different community members have different goals, and you can use diff incentives to engage them #cxmchatJohn Cass
The Impact of Social on Community
Believe it or not, customer communities existed before social media. But social media definitely impacted their growth. But do social networks help or hinder the success of growing a community? It's not easy to say -- but it's clear social has definitely provided an opportunity for organizations. By leveraging social media, you can help streamline social channels so they all serve a purpose. You can also see social as a way to engage more people across more channels. Yet, being able to access customer data across channels can be difficult and having customers spread out across platforms can make it harder to build quality relationships.
[View the story "Q6. Has social media changes customer communities? If so, in what ways?" on Storify]Q6. Has social media changes customer communities? If so, in what ways?
Storified by CMSWire.com· Fri, Apr 26 2013 09:27:02
#cxmchat Q6: Absolutely. Multiple channels, truly public participation, more important than ever to have a consistent voice.Megan Murray
Q6: not sure changed is the right word - made different - faster, more distributed and definitely louder #CXMCHATtrobbins
Q6 Social media provides global reach. Customer communities are now a global audience. #Cxmchathenrymin
Q6 yes, created confusion. what is social community, social media and social network? each have a distinct purpose. #cxmchatRob Howard
Q6 Social media are just channels. The internet has changed how communities interact. #cxmchatBrian Johnson
Q6 social media should be seen as a channel to drive people to customer communities #cxmchatRob Howard
#cxmchat Q6 SM has totally redefined customer community - it isn't something we deliver anymore.Megan Murray
Q6 Social hasn't shifted community so much as your customers & their expectations. Community can help companies adapt #cxmchatAzita Martin
Q6 @forrester has some good coverage on this with marketing RaDaR - see pic bit.ly/12I8lKk #cxmchatRob Howard
Q6 Social media has also made orgs a bit lazy. Simply broadcasting messages over social bullhorns has become the norm. #Cxmchathenrymin
Q6. Yes. A customer's social graph is now as important as their interest profile. #social media is a filter for info explosion. #cxmchatTatiana Mejia
Q6. Never before a customer experience can be amplified this much. Now every story has bigger impact and larger ripple. #cxmchatStephanieWiriahardja
Q6 I love using social for communication. I'm frustrated when a company doesn't use Twitter. I don't want to call. I want to tweet. #cxmchatBrian Johnson
Q6 Also more at your fingertips resources developed by community managers. My fave: community-roundtable.com #CXMChatZena Weist
Q6: #Social media is shifting community management resources, content & response away from gated channels. Integrate both. #cxmchatcreatorbase
Q6 bottom line: do you want to feed Facebook all your customer data? Or do you want to own it? #cxmchatRob Howard
Q6 Social provides the biggest amplification factor. That translates into Brand lift. Halo effect! #Cxmchathenrymin
Q6. Communities are driving enterprises to listen and proactively respond in real-time #CxmchatSteve Gass
Q6 Speed has increased. People can expect immediate response and I think communities need to serviced in a timely manner. #cxmchatBrian Johnson
Q6 Social makes transparency essential, which makes listening essential #CXMChat #CXMChatPaula Friedrich
Q6 Community can make your site social. Embed it next to products on page, so customers can ask & discuss in the eCommerce flow #cxmchatAzita Martin
A Culture of Community
What comes next? Customer communities aren't new, but they have certainly evolved and will continue to adapt to new environments. Communities will continue to become more powerful and provide companies with more opportunities and challenges. The future of the customer community will depend on how well companies are able to integrate experiences into their CRMs and marketing campaigns.
Social media may come and go, but your customer community must be able to withstand these changes. It's not about being on Facebook -- rather, it's about making community an integral part of your company's customer culture.
[View the story "Q7. How will customer communities evolve in the next year?" on Storify]Q7. How will customer communities evolve in the next year?
Storified by CMSWire.com· Fri, Apr 26 2013 09:27:53
Q7: Continued pace of technology change means new engagement opportunities - more choices means more business decisions #CXMCHATtrobbins
Q7. Communities will have more power, more visibility and more influence #CxmchatSteve Gass
Q7: We’ll see more investment in content, community #engagement skills development, and mobile access. #cxmchatcreatorbase
#cxmchat Q7: CXM is getting better and better as depth in delivery expertise evolves. We're getting past our awkward stages.Megan Murray
Q7. I think there will be more and more companies opening up to social and finding the value for it, thus a shift in the biz plan. #cxmchatStephanieWiriahardja
A7 even deeper ties into CRM. more companies will seek to measure their activity and impact #CxmchatChristian Buckley
Q7 Customers will build communities with or without you #Cxmchathenrymin
#cxmchat Q7: Tools are offering more integrated experiences as enterprises learn to integrate community with knowledge and internal collab.Megan Murray
Q7 customers communities will be integrated through-out #cem touch points #cxmchatRob Howard
Q7. More people will be on social media talking about companies too, so I'm predicting less phone calls, more tweets! #cxmchatStephanieWiriahardja
Q7 #Social will be a customer expectation. We no longer talk about the mobile web as separate. The web is mobile. Social is next. #cxmchatTatiana Mejia
Q7 Communities will start to pop up where you didn't expect them to. #cxmchatBrian Johnson
Q7 Internally more silo bashing to have more depts involved in listening and evolving orgs offerings from community's insights #cxmchatZena Weist
#cxmchat Q7: better execution and better tools driven by evolving smarts… we've got to step up the game.Megan Murray
Q7 86% of consumers expect companies to offer multi channel suppport. Orgs can't simply offer a Fan pg or a Twitter acct anymore. #Cxmchathenrymin
A7 there will be a much larger push for community tools on mobile devices #CxmchatChristian Buckley
Q7 social isn't a destination, but experienced throughout the customer lifecycle #cxmchatRob Howard
Q7 Tools will make it easier to get more personal with the community at a larger scale. #cxmchatBrian Johnson
Q7: more people realising the power of community and these becoming more central to how we all work #Cxmchat twubs.com/Cxmchatafilippi
Q7 and most important evolution: innovation around path-to-purchase and community influence #cxmchatRob Howard
Q7 I want us to move to making communities more personal. I also want to see more community work in the real world. #cxmchatBrian Johnson
a7 old communities will die – linkedin answers, community will be a part of the solution - the customer experience ie quora #cxmchatJohn Cass
Q7 Right now. The Twitter, FB, LinkedIn are the big ones. Google+ is growing. YouTube is ready to make internet video big on TVs. #cxmchatBrian Johnson
Q7. Nurture and engage with the communities and watch your brand excel! #CxmchatSteve Gass
A7 as content volumes become overwhelming, the differentiator is social/community, now you can not have one without the other #cxmchatJohn Cass
A7: Too many tools and channels = too much $ and time. Value should be the focus. Consolidation. #cxmchatCurtis Gross
Q7 You already see it happening in Pinterest, Instagram, Vine, and other platforms. The tech is less important. #cxmchatBrian Johnson
A7 i think most companies now view communities as an important aspect of their strategies #CxmchatChristian Buckley
Q7 I just want to see it get more personal. You can like business intelligence AND gardening. #cxmchatBrian Johnson
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Oh the Places You'll Go...
Customer Communities are not easy, but they can provide amazing opportunities to learn from and about your customers and build brand advocates. The more prepared you are to handle the growing pains and inevitable challenges, the better you'll be able to reap the benefits and offer a rewarding customer experience.
