State of the Profession SeriesCase studies from the world’s top customer advocacy and engagement programs, showing how to grow the business in today’s buyer-empowered world.

Activating Customer Engagement and Advocacy: The Community EffectBy Wendy Lea,Executive Chairman,Get Satisfaction

1

The rise of social has changed customer expectations of howthey want to interact with companies and brands across thebuyer's journey. To date, much emphasis has been placedon the customer relationship (social support) and customeracquisition (social marketing). But Wendy, one of the most

highly respected thought leader on the future of customer relationships who coinedthe term, "Community Effect," will show how that can activate powerful customeradvocacy. She'll provide practical examples from customer-centric companies,such as Intuit, Citrix Online, and Extreme Networks who are uncovering majoropportunities to create communities of customers and prospects—regardless oftheir stage in the buy cycle—and actually "operationalize" advocacy.

The key to success is to create engaging customer experiences that are hosted bythe company and happen where the customer can get maximum benefit—on theirown website, in the product, in a community platform, or even in the purchase flowitself—while exposing prospects to the questions, thoughts, ideas, and passionsof existing customers in context. The impact is two-fold: not only can companiestruly operationalize the power of their advocates, but they also will become morecustomer-centric in the process.

2

Activating Customer Engagement and Advocacy: The Community Effect I’m going to talk about how you can activate your customers to cultivatewhat I call The Community Effect. It goes beyond engaging customers to be your references to imbuing them with a feeling of being part of something bigger.

At the heart of all this is the immutable fact that your customers now have all the power. Back in 2000, I read the Cluetrain Manifesto. And one of the things that stuck with me was this quote:

"Companies that don’t realize their markets are now:

• Networked person-to-person,• Getting smarter as a result, and• Deeply joined in conversation,

are missing their best opportunity."I would highly encourage you to read this fourteen-year old book because it describes what is happening right now. And I believe that the author could help bring a high level perspective to the way you approach your job. To me, the gist of the Manifesto is that at the end-of-the-day, it is only the companies that aren’t afraid to engage with their customers that can reap the full rewards from that relationship.

Now many of you have great brands behind you, from Cisco to Salesforce.com.Fine. But we have to remember that those brands are only as good as whattheir customers are saying about them online and to each other. I emphasis thisbecause it’s critical to your success as a reference practitioner that you acceptthat reality. And that reality has ramifications for our trade.

For example, one thing I know for sure is that the customer’s journey isvery fundamental to what we’re all doing today. And the explosion of “digitaleverything” has disrupted that journey. Put Facebook and Twitter aside formoment. Those are tools. What I’m talking about is thinking about yourcustomer’s digital footprint; their whole existence online.

Customer engagement in the digital age

Traditionally, we as brand holders by virtue of the fact that we sit in the middle,think that we control the customer journey, (see Figure 1 on the next page)

3

Figure 1: The customer journey in the digital age.

Of course we don’t. Customers and prospects come in the digital front door—that would be Google—without even knocking. So when we talk about the Discover phase at the top of the figure, we’re really talking about your customers’ search. Most people when they have a question, or a problem, they don’t usually start at your Website. This is why content and stories are so important. What this means, is that in reality, your digital “homepage” is Google. Your customer’s discovery phase is as a consumer doing research, not as a prospect engaging your brand.

From there, prospects enter the valuation stage where they’re looking for otherslike them (same demographics, problems etc.) who are talking about you. Andthen they go on from there.

What’s important here is that this process has changed dramatically overthe last three to five years. And that’s why your job is so critical. And it’s whyyou’re in the catbird seat. Because, like never before, you have an incredibleopportunity to interact with customers throughout their lifecycle and to harnesstheir engagement. And that includes the chance to engage with them longbefore they’re ready to be your reference, which is toward the end of the process.

So, as a highly regarded executive in your customer marketing organization, oneway that you can bring thought leadership is to ensure that you are includedin all the activities that are being woven through your website—one of the firstplaces potential customers will visit while doing research.

Discover

Advocate

BuyBond

Experience

Why are all my friendstalking about Brand X?

Where can I buy it?Which version?

What’s the differencebetween

Brand X and Brand Y

Here’s the best wayto set up the product.

I love this productand here’s why!

Evaluate

I wish the producthad more features.

Ads&

Branding

Promotions

HelpContent

ServiceSupport

LoyaltyPrograms

Word-of-Mouth

TheBrand

ReferenceCustomers Potential

Customers

ExistingCustomers

4

Understanding your customers’ conversations and how to harness them

If you look at the outside dialogue boxes in Figure 1 above, you’ll see typicalquestions that customers ask. “Why are all my friends talking about Brand X?”That’s where they’re Discovering. When they’re Evaluating, they ask “What’s thedifference between Brand X and Brand Y?” And so on.

So that’s what consumers are asking and talking about and they’re dodgingin and out of various online sites. And they’re doing it on all manner of devicesfrom mobile phones to iPads to PCs. They’re trying to feel their way to solvinga problem by interacting with people in ways that are very organic and naturaland transparent. This helps them to sort out different solution sets and vendors.

Our primary job as marketers, therefore, is to understand how theseconversations are happening along with how best to harness them at differentstages of the sales process. So that you can move prospects throughout thecycle and cultivate their loyalty to your company and products.

Social isn’t enough, your customers and prospects want your brand to join the conversation

One of the things that I have been fascinated with is the role that social hasplayed in this new engagement paradigm. One of the conclusions I’ve cometo is that most of us should be thinking of this as an outside-in flow versus aninside-out flow. What I mean by that is that traditional CRM marketing reachedout from within the enterprise. That mindset doesn’t take into account thatconsumers now come from the outside in to find out more.1

When customers and prospects do finally come to you, they want your Websiteto be interactive, full of the information they need and easy to use. And it needsto be integrated with social, and look seamless with it, as well.

Remember that one of the main pathways to your Website will be through social channels. So you don’t want visitors to be jerked from those networks over to your site only to discover an old, tattered, web asset that’s not digitally appealing.

1 The statistics in the following three graphs come from primary research conducted by the Incyte Group for GetSatisfaction in 2012.

Websites, not social networks, are the primaryplace consumers go to make purchase decisions

Social Media is merely a door into a Brand’s Customer Community

58% of consumers have joined internet community based on a friend’s Facebook post

81% of customers use company website to research products

58%

81%

5

That would be a jarring experience for them after cruising social networks all day long.

Next, let’s explore online communities. I make a distinction between them and forums. Communities are very outcome-oriented, easy to navigate and provide content on demand in the right way. Forums by contrast are messy and very hard to find anything.

Now, why would customers want to go to a community? In my opinion, they have three primary reasons for visiting such sites.

First they want to get information quickly. Consequently, we need to make sure that the information we provide is digitally appealing. Videos are very helpful in this regard.

Second, your customers want answers/information from consumers like themselves. They want to know that some of the community content is “unbiased”, meaning it’s created by real customers. So you need to promote the creation of such content and communities are an excellent tool to accomplish that.

The third reason that consumers participate in a branded customer community is to get accurate information. Often they have specific questions and they want to network with folks who can give them correct answers.

As you can see, customers who spend time with online communities are hungry for relevant content. But ultimately, we’re here to drive advocacy. And that means activating passionate customers to talk about us.

I mentioned earlier that a strong brand doesn’t control the customer lifecycle and that’s true. But it’s also true that your brand is extremely important in helping to activate the Community Effect.

Customers show a strong preference for „BrandedCustomer Communities”

50% of participants for relevant content vettedby other consumers.

50%

Websites, not social networks, are the primaryplace consumers go to make purchase decisions

Social Media is merely a door into a Brand’s Customer Community

58% of consumers have joined internet community based on a friend’s Facebook post

81% of customers use company website to research products

58%

81%

6

We have research that shows that people will advocate for companies without being rewarded. People don’t have to be gamified. You don’t have to do these things to get them to spread the word about you. They’ll do it naturally because they have an affinity with your brand. They will have increased affinity for your brand because you’ve delivered a positive customer experience and because you’ve provided a platform—in the form of a community—where they can share that experience with like-minded people.

That’s the key to creating the Community Effect. You want your customers to share their knowledge and experience with each other. So the communities you create serve to aggregate your customers together in one place so they can talk to each other first. Then, after they’re comfortable advocating and sharing among themselves, they’re ready to go out into the world and do the same with peers that they don’t know.

The Community Effect

The context for this concept is that we’re in charge of engaging our customers wherever they are. If we engage them consistently, and compellingly, especially with each other, in each of the sales stages, then we will certainly trigger and drive strong advocacy.

A Community facilitates conversations that: • Create engagement that builds trust.• Provide mutual value for customers and the company.• Give your customers a voice that unites your company.

That in turn drives loyalty to our brand. The more active customer conversations are, the more Google’s on fire, the more content and buzz others who need our services will come across. All those conversations between individuals—about your brand, your products and services—they breed trust. So the essence of all this online activity is to generate inbound trust.

Now, you want to make sure that there’s mutual value being exchanged in your communities. Our job is to provide valuable products and services backed by a trusted brand. For their part, customers provide value of their own. They’re sharing ideas to help others understand, implement and use your products to their best advantage. When mutual value is being exchanged like this, then your customers are connecting with their peers as much as they are with your brand. And that’s very, very important.

At this point, I’m usually asked, “So where does community really fit in?” I tell people to think of it like an umbrella that covers all the stages of the customer lifecycle. It’s not just a tab on your website that says “Community.” It’s an always-on conversation that takes place under a big, beautiful digital tent.

7

And I’m really excited about the Community Effect being the new CRM. Because in the old days we said that “CRM is like a front-office application,” which is so boring, I don’t want to be in the front office of anything, right?

And now we’re replacing that with a social-centric Website. Your new front office is your community and prospects and customers can access your site through different networks.

A new customer experience imperative

Engagement is good, but what we really want to do in the marketplace is to differentiate ourselves based on our customers’ experience. So what does that mean?

Well, it doesn’t mean that customers unwrap your product, have Accenture fly in to install it, and then you ask them how you did. That’s a company-centric process and it’s outdated because conversations are taking place outside that channel. Customers have an experience with you in the digital space, and it gets amplified. And it happens in real time.

A customer-centric approach

What all of this means is that you have to be listening to your customers’ conversations and interact with them at the same time. This is a customer-centric approach to the buyer’s experience. In practice, enterprises incorporate this mindset into their processes as illustrated in Figure 2 below.

Figure 2: Customer-centric processes foster a positive customer experience.

Company-Centric ProcessPush

Marketing

ContentMarketing

Company-Centric Process

Seles Influenced by “Expert” Content

Seles Influenced by Social Proof

$

One-to-OneSupport

Many-toManySupport

8

I came from a world where company-centric processes were the norm. We did push-marketing campaigns. We provided “experts” to customers. And these people were salespeople, consultants, and SE’s.

Then I joined Get Satisfaction and everything was customer centric. I learned that content marketing is very different from push marketing. Sales are influenced by social proof. Social proof is nothing more than your customers talking about an experience they had with your product and company and saying, “That was awesome, I would buy that again and I recommend that you do the same.” That’s why it’s important to be active on Twitter, Facebook, and other social channels. Because they are excellent platforms for those conversations to take place. Customers may not buy from you through these channels but they’re likely to be introduced to your product or service there.

Conversations as a customer experience driver

Figure 3 below shows the infrastructure necessary to drive your customer conversations in a positive direction.

Figure 3: Drive customer conversations and you’ll drive a positive customer experience.

On the bottom right, you have some traditional business processes and systems. You have CRM on the sales side and MAP on the service and support side. And this whole bucket is the technology ecosystem.

Online Customer Experience

CustomerAcquisition

ContentMarketing

Sales/eCommerce

Service/Support

Community

People Content

Customer Conversations

Complements• Website• Social Listening

• Advertising/PR• Word-of-Mouth

Business Processes• CRM• MAP

• KM• BI

9

To the left of that is a list of complementary activities. As a marketer, I want to know who owns each area. And I’ve got to understand where the listening to our customers is taking place.

I find that listening is fragmented all over an organization from PR to service and support. And I want to know where all the listening content is going, and how I can harness it. There are dozens of tools for listening.So, moving to the Online Customer Experience box, you can see that it spans four key areas. All these things directly impact your customers’ experience. And what reference practitioners are trying to do is to bring people (next box up) and their content into that customer experience.

But when I think of people, your prospects and customers, I don’t think of them as stand-alone email addresses. I think of them as people who have content associated with them. Things like their affinities for your competitors’ products and services. We need to look at their online communications about those other products as well as our own. So our job is to get that content and use it to bring those potential customers as close to our company as possible.

And I think that is where communities play a role. This is a key place where customer conversations serve as a growth engine for your company.

Key takeaways

I’d like to leave you with some core concepts to think about as you go about activating a Community Effect among your advocates.

1.Your customers are talking about you outside of your control. Be open. Set aside your fears and join them to create a dialog.

2.The conversations your customers have with each other, and with you, promote trust. And that trust represents the building block for mutually beneficial business relationships.

3.Look for opportunities to give to your customers and communities. That will motivate them to reciprocate.

4.Customer advocacy is the natural outcome of speaking truth and developing trust.

Bill Lee, Founder

bill@c4ce.comwww.c4ce.com+1.214.907.5600

3225 Turtle Creek Blvd, Suite 1801 DallasTX 75219

CONSULTING

We help firms create “rock star” (aka "marquee, " "champion," "MVP," etc) customer advocates and influencers who attract new buyers daily and dramatically increase growth.

“When it comes to developing high-impact customer relationships, all roads lead to Bill Lee. His energy, passion and excitement for the subject were evident from the first. His consulting was superb.”Jackie Breiter Vice President, Customer Success & Flagship Program CA Technologies

SUMMIT ON CUSTOMER ENGAGEMENT

World’s largest and most respected conference for professionals who run customer advocacy and engagement programs

“There’s really nothing I’ve seen like [Bill’s] Summit in the country.”

Lisa ArthurChief Marketing Officer Teradata Applications

“The Summit is a “do not miss event" for you and your team.”Rhett Livengood, Director Director, B2B Customer Engagement Intel

SPEAKING

Includes keynotes, executive workshops, implementation workshops, private webinars, etc.

“Content was excellent. I learned a lot, validated some things and also got some great ideas … Highly recommended.”

Asim ZaheerSenior Vice President, Worldwide MarketingHitachi Data Systems