Smart companies are using many different channels to listen to their customers. They are capturing the voice of the customer through their Customer Advisory Board Programs, user groups (technology companies), customer research and online customer communities.   What is an Online Customer Community? An Online Customer Community is a private website where customers and the company can communicate and collaborate. Customers are invited to participate in this community and agree to online community guidelines. Many companies create one big space for sharing across their broader customer base and then design certain private areas for specific customer groups such as customers of a specific product or members of a certain CAB. Online customer communities can contain hundreds or thousands of customers and the size depends on the company's business objectives. Within an Online Customer Community, businesses can proactively engage their customers by: Starting a conversation on the Discussion Forums about an important business issue for customers, Sending out an online survey to a targeted segment of customers within the community (using the "user profiles") to gather specific product feedback and input, Inviting select customers (also using user profiles) to a face- to- face customer advisory meeting, to participate in customer research or to join a special customer program (beta testing program) to capture additional insight. Learn about how Charles Schwab is using their online customer community to capture input and feedback. They leverage this insight to guide their marketing strategies and invest in enhancing their customer experience online and in their retail establishments. Article Charles Schwab Online Customer Community

Learn more about Online Customer Communities Stepping Stone Partners has consulted on over a half dozen different online customer communities across different industries. In addition to this hands on experience, we have conducted research with several dozen community managers to identify a set of best practices and processes for successfully launching and managing an online community with mutual benefit to the company and the community participants.   NEW Community Success Start Workshop more This workshop is designed to help you and your team devise your plan and define needed processes for collaborating with customers and internal stakeholders to drive innovation and engagement. Ask the Community Expert: Sherri Dorfman Companies that are in the process of planning to launch or expand their community initiatives need answers to help them move forward. Q. How are companies paying for their communities? A.  Customer driven organizations are finding a way to fund this essential strategic asset. With this economy, the community champion is connecting with other departments to jointly support and tap this online community of customers for ongoing insight. Some companies are electing to pay for this initiative by reallocating their marketing research dollars. Others are redirecting budgets from marketing programs which can leverage the community such as the Customer Reference and Customer Advisory Board programs. As one community manager explains "This is now our Customer Advisory Program". Regardless of where they find their funds, many are proceeding with a pilot and then rollout approach and are carefully designing their communities with their customers before they are launched.  Your Question about Customer Communities? Your Question? Your Email Address:   Your email address is only requested to contact you if additional clarification is needed to answer your question. Ask the Expert continues