Unlocking customer value with the power of online communities

Online communities have come a long way since their inception in the 1980s. Over time, they have evolved into complex ecosystems that can be difficult to define. As Oblinger notes, community is “a big umbrella term that can mean 500 things to 500 different people.”

At its core, Oblinger defines community as:

A group of people with similar interests, challenges, and needs coming together in a shared experience, often in pursuit of bettering themselves and others.

Khoros defines online communities similarly: a group of individuals united by a common interest or purpose who interact with each other online. For example, this could involve members discussing their favorite podcasts in Spotify’s online community or in Sephora’s community, where customers share makeup tips and product recommendations.

Regardless of how they’re defined, Oblinger believes that one thing is consistent across great communities: they make members feel part of something larger than themselves and leave them better for it.

Building a community doesn’t happen overnight. It is a crucial component in your company’s customer engagement journey. Ask yourself: What do individual end users come to your community for, and can you optimize the experience so they get what they need?

Broadly, online communities serve four prominent use cases: to serve, listen, connect, and grow.

Customer service is one of the most common objectives for a community. Within that use case, the community can play two roles:

Customer support: Customers come to the community with questions or issues, often finding solutions through previous posts, FAQs, or by asking other members. If the problem hasn’t been resolved, they can ask directly within the community and receive help from another customer or the brand.

Proactive customer success: Brands can leverage the community to proactively share best practices, customer success stories, and product documentation, helping customers avoid issues before they arise.

An active community provides a constant stream of invaluable, real-time feedback. Brands can tap into that gold mine of information: product feedback, customer service issues, and opportunities for service improvements—all without having to ask. The key is having systems to identify and act on this feedback efficiently.

Additionally, brands can directly engage superusers and active members for more formal feedback using surveys or Q&As. These tactics create a strong feedback loop for marketing, customer service, and product teams, giving them direct access to the community’s most informed and engaged users.

Online communities are powerful tools for fostering relationships. They enable your brand to connect with customers and, perhaps more importantly, allow customers to connect with one another. The human need for connection often drives the most successful and active communities.

One example is SANE Australia’s community, which provides a supportive space for people to connect with others and supplement their mental health care. This type of connection-building can also be enhanced using forums, contests, and gamification, which deepen member relationships between each other and the brand.

Once end users are engaged and providing feedback, businesses can leverage these relationships to create brand advocates and effectively pull in net new customers. Communities are a fantastic way to grow inbound web traffic, with 70% of community traffic coming from organic search. Search engines prioritize fresh content, and online communities continually generate new content through user discussions, which helps improve your brand’s visibility. For example, Spotify’s community is rich in SEO, with 96% of traffic coming from organic searches.

When done right, these four use cases work together to unlock value across the customer journey. As Oblinger says, “When I think about community, I think about the whole experience and how you can build the ‘one-stop shop’ — the one place people can go to get everything that they need in an integrated way.”

Now that we've outlined the value online communities provide for brands, let’s explore the different types of communities. Some communities fit into a single category, while others, particularly well-established ones, may evolve and span multiple types.

Customer Support

Customer support communities enable brands to service and support customer inquiries, deflect calls, and lower contact volume.

Spotify, the global music streaming service, has cultivated its online support community for over 12 years and evolved the platform into a space where users can create, share, and learn. Spotify’s team believes customers should spend time experiencing its products and engaging with friends, family, and peers — not talking to customer service.

Customer support communities enable brands to:

• Decrease support costs through contact and call deflection

• Increase efficiency by reducing response times

• Detect product issues faster or even eliminate them before they arise

Marketing

Marketing communities focus on broader user engagement to drive general discussion, brand advocacy, and sales.

Sephora, the cosmetics giant, has cultivated an online community centered around inclusivity and self-expression. Its Beauty Insider community is a place for customers to ask questions, join challenges, and get product recommendations from their peers.

Members must opt into the Beauty Insider loyalty program to fully engage in the community. Combining these programs has been wildly successful for Sephora: its loyalty members now account for 80% of its sales, and community members spend 2.5 times more than a typical customer who doesn’t engage in the community.

Marketing communities enable brands to:

• Better educate customers and build their confidence in products

• Make a positive impact on pipeline and revenue

• Increase customer loyalty and advocacy

Customer Success

In customer success communities, customers connect, share experiences, and access resources to help them achieve their goals with a product or service.

Hubspot, the marketing, sales, and customer service software company, launched its online community in 2016. The program has evolved from a support community to a customer success use case, driving more customers to join the community, engage with others, and become Hubspot advocates.

Customer success communities enable brands to:

• Increase customer retention and engagement

• Empower members to exchange insights and learn from their peers

• Help customers maximize their product knowledge

Partner and Developer

Communities for partners and developers focus on a niche group of users, fostering knowledge and resources to help them succeed.

PTC, a hi-tech computer software company, provides specialized support within its community for nearly 800,000 engineers and developers across many complex products, specialties, and time zones.

Within the developer community, PTC created a “product ideas” forum for members to share their suggestions for improvements and innovations, which provides an ongoing stream of valuable feedback.

Partner and developer communities enable brands to:

• Meet customers’ preferences for peer-to-peer and self-service support

• Educate and empower its niche community

• Crowdsource product ideas and innovation

Online communities are proving to be essential for businesses today. They are critical in supporting customer service, gathering real-time feedback, fostering user connections, and driving business growth. By creating these spaces, companies can lower costs, strengthen customer loyalty, and improve their products.

Tune into the Community Learning Labs webinar series to learn more about the value of building communities and see Oblinger’s examples of great online communities today.