Turn Your Community Into Your Top CS Asset: Elevating Your Customer Community Beyond Service
2024 42 min

Turn Your Community Into Your Top CS Asset: Elevating Your Customer Community Beyond Service


The holy grail of a successful customer community lies in leveraging your most important resource: Your users. In this session, you will learn about implementing systems and strategies to nurture your user base to grow into a self-sustaining peer-to-peer network, which in return will enable your Community Management team to evolve and expand your community into your company’s most important Customer Success asset.



0:00

Thanks everybody for coming to our session today.

0:04

And our track, where it's all about empowering our customers to help themselves

0:08

and to excel

0:09

at what they're doing.

0:10

Apologies for my voice.

0:12

If you were not here last session, I have a bit of a voice issue right now.

0:15

My name is Julian.

0:16

I'm an Enterprise CSM for Gainsite.

0:18

I work at the community product.

0:20

So all these topics here, I write up my alley.

0:22

And I'm actually super, super excited to have somebody on stage today that I

0:27

work with

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me for seven years, six or seven years, and I have weekly meetings with them

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and I actually

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enjoy them.

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To have weekly meetings with my customer.

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It's our for Gainsite communities, our most active and biggest community that

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we have.

0:43

So definitely also make sure to pick his brain after the session.

0:46

We will share the slides in the recording.

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So don't worry about taking pictures of the slides.

0:50

We will share that.

0:51

Please head to the PULTS app to track for go to the Q&A section.

0:56

Ask your questions there, but also there's a poll waiting for you.

0:59

So please, please go to the app and be active there.

1:02

All shut up.

1:03

Welcome to the stage.

1:05

Björn Scholzer from O2 Germany.

1:07

Give them a warm welcome.

1:10

Hi everyone.

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I believe most of us in this room are being faced with similar challenges in

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our work.

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One of them being having to achieve more with less.

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So we have to create more value for the company.

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We have to make more people buy our stuff.

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We have to make less customers leave.

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And at the same time, we are not getting more budget for it or more resources.

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So in the session, I want to talk about how we can bring your community to the

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next level

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while leveraging the limited resources we have at hand.

2:13

The scope is quite ambitious and complex.

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So I asked Ainsight for six hours, but they only gave me 45 minutes.

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So I propose that we skip the introduction round in the whole room and I just

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go on.

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My name is Björn Scholzer.

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I've been building and helping communities grow for about 15 years now.

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I started out as a community manager in 2010 and since I've grown into a hybrid

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of community

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architect, strategist and owner.

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And I've worked with several companies and several brands in the meantime.

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The biggest being O2 Germany.

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O2 Germany is one of Germany's great three established mobile network operators

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and Internet service providers.

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It is part of the global telephonic group.

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I joined the O2 Germany community in 2015 as a community consultant and since

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2021 I'm the owner of the whole program.

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Before I joined, the O2 community was mostly a support community, but it

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already showed great potential for more because of the ever-growing peer-to-

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peer support.

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So we started to expand the scope of the O2 community to also cover brand,

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product and innovation.

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And our goal was to create a self-sustaining network that covers all steps in

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the customer lifecycle,

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while at the same time covering the whole product development cycle.

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A few new numbers about the community and where we stand today.

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We have about 800,000 registered users.

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We have almost 2.5 million posts online.

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In the community they are working 25 moderators and community managers.

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About 60% of all solutions are peer-to-peer solutions.

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Almost every day a new product review is being published.

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And this year alone we have done already 10 feedback projects.

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Today I want to share some of the measures and some of the strategies we've

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implemented during the past years.

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And yeah, hopefully you'll get something out of it.

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Most of our communities launch with the mission to reduce support costs,

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which means that the very first thing you want to establish is that your

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community becomes the best destination for everything service related.

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Because you quickly need to provide value for both your customers and your

5:01

bosses.

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At the same time you might be competing against other touch points your company

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already has.

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Like a live chat bot, maybe even a classic hotline.

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So you are competing against real-time channels.

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So how can you stand out from the very beginning?

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You have to prove that your community is an easy and fast-paced source for help

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and solutions.

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Because like I just said you are competing against real-time touch points.

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This means that from the start you have to become the destination for fast and

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valuable support.

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So what you should do?

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If your customers fail at other touch points your community will step in and

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help.

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If your team doesn't have a solution to a question they never send users away.

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Instead they get the information themselves and provide the solution in the

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community.

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If several users have the same question over time you turn your solution into

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an FAQ or a tutorial.

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Your user should see that your community provides quick solutions, is easy to

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use and provides added value right from the start.

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So now we have established a basic support routine for our community platform.

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What's next?

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Now we are ready to scale and now it's time to actually doing the community

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thing.

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But how can you scale up when you can hire more moderators or community

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managers and how can you make your platform inviting so that it really becomes

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a community?

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You start helping your users to help themselves and help each other.

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This one is controversial I know that your goal is to free up your own

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resources.

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You aim to make yourself redundant as support and service moderators.

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You will never get there because there will always be a need for individual

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support but you can go a long way when you scale your moderation and you let

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peer to peer evolve.

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So start enabling your users to provide solutions and help them share their

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knowledge.

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You can do this by sharing your own knowledge.

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You can do this by being accountable and by giving room for peer to peer

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interaction.

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As soon as your community starts to pick up pace it's time for you to adjust

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your own response times.

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If you are always the first to respond to a topic then your public helped us

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but not a community.

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But then it's important to also ask questions, to give context and to always

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close the loop.

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If your users resolve their problem on their own, ask them to share their

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solution.

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If you need to pull a conversation to a private message post a public follow up

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to tell everyone how the issue was solved

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and always be open and transparent with your information.

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Every solution you give, every follow up question you ask, every additional

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information you provide isn't just aimed at the person who asked the question.

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It's aimed at everyone who will ever read this topic.

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The more you give, the more your users can learn and eventually they will ask

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those follow up questions themselves.

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They will provide the solutions themselves, they will link to the additional

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information themselves so you don't have to anymore.

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So please, please, please make sure that something like this never happens in

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your community.

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I just mentioned that you should scale back on your response time so let's

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quickly dive into that.

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What you see here is a workflow that I created for the O2 community. We call it

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concierge workflow. It's based on the hospitality industry.

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A few years ago, we suddenly got tons of new users and new questions coming in.

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At the highest peak it was about 5,000 a month.

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So we had a huge backlog and we couldn't keep up anymore. So I created the conc

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ierge role.

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While the moderators work on a first in first out basis, the concierge job is

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to monitor the community near real time.

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The concierge needs to make a quick decision based on a few questions.

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It's the topic and the pain point time sensitive. Does it have escalation

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potential?

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Then you respond immediately and you give it to the moderation now.

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Can the question be answered peer to peer? Then let it sit for 24 hours.

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If after 24 hours the solution hasn't been provided by the community. Then you

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can step in.

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You can provide the solution. You can provide additional information and your

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users can learn.

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It's a topic a customer support issue. Or do you need more information before

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you can even help?

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Then you can respond immediately. You can ask for more information.

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And your moderation team or the community can step in after.

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Also, you always try to empower your users. You can break it down into three

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rules.

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Be welcoming and show early present like concierge. Empower peer to peer

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engagement.

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And also escalate to the classic moderation when the concierge can't solve it

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within one click and one single action.

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Next up, we want to look at an example of how a moderator can do that.

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You can see here the moderator welcomes the user to the community. They provide

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support.

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They also provide a link to a self-service resource. Then they ask a question

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to better understand the issue.

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If the user now responds, then you have a real conversation going on and

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hopefully other users can chime in.

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For me, that's community one-on-one. A moderator is doing a good job, but they

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can do better.

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So, where are we now? We have established a basic peer-to-peer support.

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Because of that, we have freed some of our resources. And now we can extend the

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scope.

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We can now talk about feedback and we can talk about customer experience.

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People will give you feedback in your community whether you ask for it or not.

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So, I recommend that you stop, collaborate and listen.

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Listen to their feedback very carefully and then collaborate with your product

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team to fix their pain points.

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If you can evolve your community to become a customer experience hub, then you

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can become a very powerful asset in your own company.

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So, now it's time to make use of the resources you saved and you start becoming

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an advocate for your users.

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Like I just said, your customers will give you feedback about the experience

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they make with your product.

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It could be hidden in a question. It could look like a throwaway comment.

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It could be a long ass rant about a very specific function they are having

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trouble with your product.

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It could be anything. So, the very first step now is to actually find the pain

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points.

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With content monitoring, your goal is now to identify the pain points, to

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evaluate the urgency and to create the content

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so later your product team can get actionable items out of it.

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So, have processes in place that let you stay on top of your content no matter

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if it's automatic or manual.

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With CX service, you can start to actually ask users questions about their

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customer experience.

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One example is the classic net promoter score.

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You can enhance your existing NPS survey and ask users why they voted the way

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they did.

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And automatically you get tons of new feedback.

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Also, you can launch a community feedback program that directly connects your

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product team with your community.

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I will talk about this in a moment.

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Now that you're gathering feedback, it's time to actually do something with it.

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Your role as a community team now is to become the customer's advocate.

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You are already open for their feedback, so that's good.

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You show them that you care, that you understand, and that their opinions

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matter.

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And now you have to actually deliver.

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It's time to turn their pain points into laugh points.

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So, get in touch with your product team, show them the pain points, show how

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many of your customers are affected, show possible solutions, get their

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feedback, let the product team explain what will be done and when and stay in

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the loop.

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And let, and then be transparent with your community.

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Be honest what happens with your feedback, what will be picked up and when,

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what won't be picked up and why.

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Customers understand that every pain point or every future request can be

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delivered, but you have to be honest and transparent about it.

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So, now how can you really boost your community in terms of customer experience

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Like I just said, by creating a community feedback program.

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In the community we call it Auto Beta Vergstad or Auto Beta Workshop.

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And we have found that it's a win-win-win situation.

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The program adds great value for our product teams because they can directly

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talk to our customers who are using our product.

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It makes our users feel seen and be heard because they have influence in the

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product they use.

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And it positions our community as the destination for customer centric exchange

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So, let's have a quick look at how your feedback program will fit your product

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development cycle.

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This is a simplified version of a product development cycle.

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It includes all the steps of the voice.

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It includes all the steps where the voice of the customers can have an

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influence in the development cycle.

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In the research phase, your product team can use the community to find out the

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needs and wants of the customers.

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In the development stage, your product team can test first prototypes and they

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can get feedback about the user journey they are thinking of.

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Then there's a beta testing phase, you can let your community test for bugs,

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you can test the actual user journey,

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and you can get feedback about feature priorities.

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And you won't stop after the launch because after the product is launched, you

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can again listen to the community in terms of bugs and pain points

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and you can find out the best cause for future updates.

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It could be its own session to talk about how to launch and grow a community

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feedback program.

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We don't have time.

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So, I won't go into detail about the different kinds you can launch, but I want

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to talk about the basic principles that every feedback program should follow.

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So, no matter if you start an ideation program or if you do market research

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surveys, if you launch a beta testing program or something else,

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there are some rules that you should follow in my opinion.

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First, don't waste anyone's time.

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Second, be precise in what you want out of the project.

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Always ask precise questions.

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Third, what do users get out of it when they join?

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Then, keep a conversation going, ask follow-up questions, don't make it a one-

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way street.

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And very, very important, let the participants know what will happen with their

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feedback.

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In the end, you want them to trust you with their time and with their feedback.

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You want them to be motivated for the next project because they see that their

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opinions and their influence matters and makes for a better product.

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And you also want to have that they have a sense of ownership and become an

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advocate for the product.

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You want them to feel proud and say, "Hey, I was part of making this product."

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By now, this scope of our community has already expanded.

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We started with support and now we've added customer experience value.

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The users start to trust us with their time, they leave feedback, and we have

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started processes to make use of it.

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So, now it's time to focus on building a strong community where people really

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feel like they belong.

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And that's why you want to get to know your users.

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I believe this is the hardest thing about evolving a community.

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Enabling your users and your team to build relationships and a strong community

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culture with shared values, with shared norms, with a sense of belonging,

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and constant encouragement to participate.

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You can do automation for a lot of stuff, but you cannot automate personal

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relationships.

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So, this process takes time and it takes manual effort.

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Earlier when I talked about the concierge workflow, I mentioned peer-to-peer

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empowerment.

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So, how can you bring the right users together?

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How do you know which users provide the most value?

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And how can you successfully invite them to make your community and your

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products better?

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I want to share the engagement letter.

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The engagement letter is one of the most essential tasks in my opinion.

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Your engagement letter can be based on so many things.

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For example, your gamification concept, your product feedback program, your

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community education,

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and other added values you add to your community.

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What you see here is a simplified version of the engagement letter we built for

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the O2 community.

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It basically works like a funnel.

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It starts with the first contact, usually when a customer needs support.

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If they have a good first experience, they will come back the next time they

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need support.

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If your community is inviting and sticky, then they will start to engage in

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topics that go beyond their own service needs.

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They will become active in other topics.

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They will start to give feedback.

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And their main motivation will slowly change over time.

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And so progress it further.

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Until you reach the highest level, where the users come to your community on a

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weekly or even daily basis,

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then it's not about getting support anymore.

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Those users probably know more about your product than you do.

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They feel a sense of belonging.

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They want to share their knowledge.

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Their main motivator becomes the community itself, which means they build

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relationships and they thrive on the recognition.

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They get for being active, constructive and influential.

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The hard part about all this, people won't climb the ladder on their own.

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You have to understand their motivations, you have to understand their needs,

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you have to build real relationships with them,

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and you have to give back to them.

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Now, let's measure how successful we are in converting users from one step of

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the engagement ladder to the next one.

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And that's where the activation funnel comes in handy.

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On the left you can see the stress-roads we have defined for activity levels.

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And on the right, you can see an example of how many people made the next step.

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For example, here 1% of the visitors have registered for the community.

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Of those who have registered, 50% have been active at least once, and so on.

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So, depending on your numbers, you can find out at what stages of the

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engagement ladder you are losing to many users.

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And then you can work on optimizing your touch points, your recognition, your

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benefits, your gamification and so on.

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By the way, I had about 10 of those KPI slides, but like I said, we don't have

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6 hours.

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So, if you want to ask about KPI, just use the poll, and we can talk about it.

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In the next part, I want to talk about using all that we have established so

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far, and how we can get to the next level.

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So, the question now is, how can we convert as many people as possible from

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feeling like they are a guest,

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to feeling like they really belong in our community?

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How can we really establish a community in the original sense of the word?

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First, let's have a look at the most important users in our community, our

22:14

super users, and our potential super users.

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Your super users are the most important resource in your community.

22:23

They provide solutions, they give you constant feedback, they often recognize

22:27

pain points before you do.

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They give authentic purchasing advice to others, and they do many other things.

22:34

They want to trust you with their time and their effort, and they are willing

22:38

to advocate for you when you get criticized.

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So, what should you offer them in return to prove that you trust them, that you

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appreciate them in their time,

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that you appreciate their loyalty and value their opinions?

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In my opinion, it's as much as possible, and it doesn't need to be monetary.

22:58

In the O2 community, we basically treat our super users as an extension to our

23:02

community team.

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For that, we created our community expert program.

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We are a team. We are all in this together.

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We shape the community together, and our inner circle is a safe space.

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When we started the community expert program, in the early days, we appointed

23:27

super users based on how they gave peer-to-peer support.

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With all the new scopes we introduced, like product reviews and beta testing,

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we redefined our selection strategy,

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we optimized the recognition, and we added new touch points and benefits.

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Today, our selection strategy is mostly based on soft factors.

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Of course, we still look at activity and engagement in other KPIs for pre-

23:57

selection,

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but then it is about things like the tone of voice, the way they interact with

24:02

other users and our team,

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and if the character matches our team values.

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Let's have a quick look at our super users strategy.

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For example, we know they are interested because we have to build a

24:16

relationship with them.

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We mentioned them when we believe their expertise will add value to a topic.

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Then, every expert has their own mentor/body from the community team.

24:30

They receive a personal appointment letter from me when we invite them to

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become part of the expert program.

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They sign an NDA, so we can share much more information with them.

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Also, we can do confidential feedback projects with them, and they get special

24:48

permissions to moderate the content because we trust them to do this.

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We invite them to workshops and many other things.

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In short, we trust them with information and permissions.

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We give them direct access to the team and to the company, and we give them

25:08

lots of public recognition and appreciation.

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Let's get back to the example.

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This one I call CommunityPro.

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The moderator now pulls in the super user into the conversation.

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This way, the super user can do the peer-to-peer support themselves, but they

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also feel seen and appreciated, and they have a stage to shine.

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And for us, it's less work.

25:39

Next, I want to pick up one topic again that is very, very important to me.

25:45

Your community wins or lose based on how you as a community team live your

25:50

community.

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Like I said earlier, you cannot automate a personal relationship, and it takes

25:55

constant manual effort to build an inviting, trusting, and healthy community.

26:00

In the long run, users will be loyal to you if you are loyal to them.

26:06

They will trust you if you show that you are trustworthy.

26:09

They will feel a sense of belonging when you make them feel like they belong.

26:15

Your users can only give back to you what you give to them.

26:19

You lead by example.

26:21

So, if you want your users to help each other and help themselves, then you

26:25

have to give them all the information and the tools they need.

26:28

And you have to know your users so you can connect the right people with each

26:32

other.

26:33

By the way, it works the other way around too.

26:36

If your users know you, then they get to connect in a very different way with

26:40

you.

26:41

If you want your users to give your product feedback, then you have to be open

26:46

about what's happened with it.

26:48

And you have to mean what you say, be accountable.

26:52

If they feel like it's a one way street, then their motivation will quickly

26:55

fade and you will struggle to find any users who are willing to give you their

27:01

time.

27:02

If you want your users to be understanding and forgiving when something doesn't

27:06

work as expected, then you have to be transparent with why things aren't

27:10

working the way they do.

27:12

If you want users to be advocates for you and for your product, then you have

27:16

to be ready for honest feedback.

27:18

Which brings me to the next topic.

27:22

Compared to marketing, peer-to-peer recommendations carry more weight.

27:28

People trust product recommendations from people they know.

27:32

And they trust real consumer opinions online.

27:35

So, in my opinion, it makes total sense to open up your community for product

27:40

reviews.

27:41

This way, you turn your community into a trusted source for purchasing advice.

27:46

You don't need to advertise your product yourself because your community is a

27:50

trusting place for your customers to recommend your products within each other.

27:55

And if they criticize your product, then you get the chance to turn their pain

28:00

points into laugh points.

28:02

As you can see on the slide, your community can bring in a lot of value to

28:06

every step of the customer journey.

28:09

Your community can create very positive first impression.

28:13

You can connect your advocate to your prospect.

28:17

Your community can make people trust that they aren't just buying a product,

28:21

but they are also getting great support

28:24

and they can have influence in making the product better.

28:28

With the help of the community, they can learn how to get the best out of the

28:31

product

28:32

and they can become an advocate themselves.

28:36

So, the circle closes.

28:39

So, my recommendation, be bold and let your customers post product reviews in

28:47

your community.

28:50

Now we have all the building blocks and everything can come together.

28:55

We have implemented strategies and workflows to let our customers success power

29:01

has grow.

29:02

Our community now is self-sufficient in terms of support and self-service.

29:08

We gather feedback and we fix pain points.

29:11

We have a community feedback program that brings your product team and your

29:14

customers together.

29:16

We have open and transparent communication. Our community is inviting.

29:21

We are building great relationships with our users, especially our super users.

29:25

And we are a trusted source for peer-to-peer recommendation.

29:29

So, now with all this, you can enjoy the magic of the self-sustaining community

29:38

Your community now offers high-quality peer-to-peer solution, which will help

29:42

your SEO visibility.

29:44

More people will visit your community because you cover their service needs.

29:51

They will find trustworthy peer-to-peer support.

29:53

They will see how inviting the communities and the content will improve their

29:56

customer experience.

29:58

So, they stay and they start engaging, which leads to more peer-to-peer

30:03

interaction,

30:04

which will people find on search engines, which will bring new people to the

30:08

community.

30:09

The membership base will grow because of all the different use cases you can

30:13

provide.

30:14

The larger your community, the more credible it becomes, which will drive more

30:19

users to your community, and so on.

30:22

So, let's have a final look at our example.

30:28

With all the right strategies and all the right workflows, your team can now

30:32

become the community MVP.

30:34

We are welcoming, we provide support, we give additional context and

30:38

information, we are engaging,

30:41

we connect our users with each other, we make our most important users feel

30:45

seen and appreciated,

30:46

and we also invite everybody to make their products better.

30:54

That's it? You have won the Internet.

30:58

I believe you have now successfully elevated your community beyond service.

31:09

Congratulations.

31:10

Thank you so much, Pierre. Thank you. Wonderful session.

31:14

Packed with information, I bet a ton of you will probably download the slides

31:17

later and review that in your own time.

31:20

Please connect also with him on LinkedIn. He's very friendly. He likes to

31:24

respond also there and help you.

31:26

If there are any questions, we have a ton of questions, so we try to cover them

31:32

, but I think you also offered.

31:34

If we cannot cover your question, please also repost it on LinkedIn and we are

31:37

happy to help you there.

31:39

I'm off for closing the loop, like I said, so no question gets an answer.

31:45

Great. Let's go to the Q&A.

31:52

First, actually, at the poll. I'm very curious about it.

31:56

What maturity stage is your community? I'd love to see that.

32:01

It's actually matching what I see in our customer base.

32:05

We have a lot of, especially B2B communities, that are more in the crawl and

32:09

walk phase,

32:10

where we get more and more up and running, I think, as well.

32:13

I think this is also right where your presentation comes in handy.

32:16

Going beyond support, going beyond that, and really having something that

32:21

provides more value than just self-service.

32:24

Super, super interesting. Thanks for participating in the poll.

32:29

So, what a question to start with. Great talk. I'm curious.

32:34

Who are your moderators? Are they just volunteers from your community? Is their

32:37

remuneration involved?

32:39

Or are they full-time employees sitting in the community team?

32:45

Quick question. Your moderators are part of Telefonica.

32:53

We have a customer success team, and we have a team of, like I said, 25

33:03

moderators and community managers.

33:05

A lot of them initially started in the one-on-one support, like hotline, email,

33:15

chat and stuff.

33:17

So, when they came to the community, they had to learn a lot.

33:21

So, because it's a completely different world out there if you're talking to

33:26

the whole world potentially.

33:28

So, we try to educate our moderators to become a real community manager.

33:36

And it takes time, it takes effort.

33:39

And we also kind of need and ask them to be also open, because I don't believe

33:47

that you can be a great community manager if you aren't able to share anything

33:54

from yourself.

33:56

So, that's one of the characteristics we are also looking for, that people are

34:02

willing to be outgoing in a way.

34:06

But, yeah, it's a team of moderators, and we are trying to establish them as a

34:11

community team and community managers.

34:14

And I think this is probably the most efficient also, because then these people

34:17

that train, they know what they're doing on the community.

34:19

It's not just transactional, here's your answer, buy exactly what you're

34:22

showing in your slides.

34:24

I want to point out, in B2B also interesting dynamics, I have some customers

34:28

that even employ their partners on the community.

34:34

So, you're a partner, we give you exposure on the community, you help us with a

34:38

quota of questions answered or articles co-created.

34:42

So, there are also models like this where you can also get other resources.

34:46

Maybe, I'm not part of the company to help you.

34:48

Not necessarily moderate, but definitely help providing answers as well.

34:53

How do you compare the service value of the community with other traditional

34:56

support channels?

34:58

That's a good one.

35:00

That's a good one.

35:03

It all depends on trust, I would say.

35:08

So, if you have done a good job in your community over years, I would say,

35:20

then people will quickly get a feeling about how trustworthy the content and

35:26

the community is.

35:28

You can very quickly get a sense of how people are interacting with each other,

35:36

if it's respectful,

35:38

if they are there friendly with each other.

35:42

And this also transports to the actual solutions and stuff.

35:47

So, I believe if your community is inviting and people feel a sense of

35:54

belonging and they feel like they are being heard and being seen,

36:00

then I believe the service value to be much higher than compared to one-on-one

36:09

situation.

36:12

Especially when in our case, we want the community to be the destination, like

36:19

I said in the beginning.

36:21

Users will fail at other touch points.

36:24

And our mission is that no one gets left behind.

36:28

So, we never send anyone away.

36:30

So, I think this also builds trust.

36:33

That they say, "Okay, on the hotline, no one could help me.

36:37

The chatbot is useless." And the automated stuff I get recommended, it doesn't

36:43

work for me.

36:45

And we grab them and we don't let them go until their problem is solved.

36:51

Just in case there might be also a ROI, KPI kind of business impact angle to

36:56

this question that also,

36:59

maybe that's also a way to interpret the question.

37:05

If you want to look at the ROI of a community support versus hotline, emails,

37:10

whatever.

37:12

Of course, emails you can see how many tickets are coming in, how many people

37:15

are creating tickets for community.

37:19

If you look at value there, never underestimate the power of the lurkers.

37:23

People are just reading along, getting their value from that.

37:25

Not just saying like we have 50 people asking a question and they did not ask a

37:28

question to support.

37:29

It's actually hundreds of people that will read that in the future and get

37:32

their value from that.

37:33

So never ever make the mistake of underestimating the power of the lurkers.

37:38

Most service communities have exit service where they ask,

37:42

"Did you cover the question? Did you find the solution here? Would you have

37:44

content as otherwise?"

37:46

And then I have a percentage that I can just project on the general traffic

37:49

that I'm seeing.

37:50

And that's that I can say we saved 500 tickets from being created this month.

37:55

So maybe one answer to that. One very important KPI for us is the deflection

38:03

rate, the call deflections.

38:06

So that's one thing that we are being tasked with.

38:11

Our hotline costs money per user calling. It's two and a half years or

38:16

something like this.

38:19

So every call the people don't make is money saved for the company.

38:24

So what we do is we have like an exit survey and we ask,

38:29

"Did the community help with your issue?" Yes or no? If they say yes,

38:34

then we ask the follow-up question, "Would you have otherwise called the

38:37

hotline?"

38:38

If they say yes to both, then we have all the information we need to calculate

38:44

the deflection rate.

38:47

And would I like also to try to say there's a bit more to be to be and not just

38:52

customer support because people are also asking me questions.

38:56

That's also an angle or an implementation manager. I think persona did that.

39:01

Like on the persona community you're asking, "Would you have contacted the

39:04

company otherwise?"

39:05

So you can make it more generic but get a general impact on that.

39:09

How much you actually added value or just ask, "Did the community help with

39:12

what you tried to achieve today?"

39:15

Let's go to the next question.

39:17

"How have you managed closing the look with customers when product team don't

39:20

want to guarantee,

39:21

realization and/or timeline?" Yeah.

39:24

Never happens, Alex. Never. Never.

39:28

It takes years. It takes years and it takes a lot of internal marketing

39:37

and it takes being bold and being courageous and sometimes it takes doing stuff

39:47

just because you feel like it's the right thing to do and later you have the

39:51

proof.

39:52

And so what I want to say is that I'm working for a big company and they are

40:03

risk-averse

40:06

and up to today a lot of people that are working in engineering and IT and

40:14

stuff,

40:15

they have the mindset of why do the customers need, why it's broken.

40:22

They can see it's broken.

40:24

Let me work on my stuff and if I don't have to tell you how long it would take

40:29

and what is wrong,

40:30

it would be done faster.

40:33

So we had to do a lot of groundwork to show them actually it helps.

40:38

It helps bring people's emotion down, it helps to get people to understand that

40:45

not everything can be working perfectly.

40:47

And so I don't have like a blueprint.

40:53

But generally you have to make people trust that your experience tops their

41:02

stereotype.

41:05

And I think also working with product is a process right?

41:08

Like you learn and you evolve from that.

41:11

But like two thoughts maybe about this.

41:13

First of all, never not respond.

41:17

Like close the loop if you say like I don't have the information or I don't

41:20

know. Like it's better to go back to the customer rather than like leaving them out

41:23

in the rain.

41:24

It's a super poor experience that will not come back to the community.

41:26

So even if I don't have information I'll share that with you.

41:29

Second, manage expectations.

41:31

For us we have an ideation module where people can submit ideas and upload them

41:36

Like you also did not go to the customer as you say give me all the ideas in

41:39

the world.

41:40

Tell us what we should do.

41:41

Like you know change your brand color to like green whatever.

41:44

You limited the scope.

41:45

And that's a very good way for a product team to ease also there and to like

41:49

that process.

41:50

If you say like look we're going to work on this area of the product.

41:53

Share all the ideas about this area.

41:55

And then you can contain the risk a little bit more maybe.

42:00

Yeah.

42:01

I think it was one of the slides where I said be precise in knowing what you

42:04

want and be precise in knowing what to ask for.

42:08

Yeah.

42:09

I'm afraid we had a time.

42:10

It's time for lunch.

42:11

Probably you're belly-scenting.

42:13

That's grab some food.

42:15

The other questions again we have some time also here if you want to join and

42:18

have a good discussion. But thanks a lot for coming.

42:19

Thank you guys.

42:20

[Applause]

42:21

(applause)