1. GET IT TOGETHER: WHY YOU NEED AN ONLINE COMMUNITY
A MARKET REPORT ON WIDE-RANGING COMMUNITY TRENDS
SEPTEMBER 2014
www.getsatisfaction.com

2. 2
Cold-call sales and please-take-a-number support don’t fit in a good customer engagement strategy anymore. Those days
are in the past, period.
Instead, your policy should treat each customer like employee of the month. After all, they’ve earned it.
There is a way to make the customer experience more thorough, comprehensive,
and fully engaging: provide a community.
Most organizations think developing community means addressing support calls and briefly responding to social media questions. —but that’s talking at customers, not conversing with them.
Your audience has
a lot to say, and it’s invaluable information. They want to tell you exactly what they expect from your support, marketing, and product innovation teams. They’re even willing
to work with you.
It’s up to you to initiate, continue, and expand
that conversation.
Branded online communities provide an open discussion forum that encourages and facilitates the collaboration of customers and enterprises. Organizations that incorporate community into their customer strategies have seen tremendous results across the board, as they integrate it into multiple departments and connect it to all aspects of audience engagement.
Introduction
YOUR AUDIENCE IS READY
AND WILLING
TO BE MORE THAN JUST
CUSTOMERS.
Despite consultants and analysts repeatedly explaining for years
(in every variation and in no uncertain terms) how the customer landscape changed, brands still aren’t listening.
Many companies slightly tweaked their strategies a few years ago, signing up for Facebook and Twitter and calling it a day. But now they’ve fallen behind, as the gap between best-in-class enterprises and laggard businesses grows every month, week, and day.
INTRODUCTION
WHAT YOUR CUSTOMERS WANT

3. 3
INTEGRATING COMMUNITY
INTO YOUR MIX:
• Improves customer experience
• Reduces support workload
• Utilizes resources more strategically
• Adds a dynamic marketing element
• Helps innovate products and features
SURVEY RESPONDENT BREAKDOWN
Introduction
For the inside scoop on customer wants, needs, and expectations,
Get Satisfaction conducted a
market survey of 800+ professionals in more than a dozen industries, ranging from technology to education to consumer hardware.
INDUSTRY
27.55% B2B Technology (SaaS/Software)
21.76% Other
13.77% Consumer Internet/
Online Technology
8.82% Consumer Goods
7.99% Education
6.61% Nonprofit/Government
5.79% B2B Technology (Hardware)
4.13% Consumer Hardware/Electronics
3.58% Finance
REVENUE
NUMBER OF
CUSTOMERS
1
1
1
1
5
5
5
3
3
3
7
9
2
2
2
6
8
4
4
4
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
8.62%
$1B+
5.85% $501M–$1B
5.85% $201M–$500M
16.31% $50M–$200M
67.08% <$50M
26.98% 10K+
7.92% 5K–10K
11.73% 1K–5K
11.44% 500–1K
41.94% 100–500
1
5
3
2
4
1
5
3
2
4

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WE HOPE YOU ENJOY THE READ.
For years, Get Satisfaction has been
at the forefront of branded community management and technology development. We know communities better than anyone, and we’re thrilled
to explore deeply into what organizations are learning, absorbing, and getting
out of their communities, as we pass
this knowledge onto our current and future customers.
IN THIS REPORT, YOU’LL LEARN:
• How comprehensive a community
can be
• Why it’s important to update your support strategy
• How to make your brand experience a conversation, not a one-way broadcast
• How to get your best customers to work for you
• Advice from B2B tech companies
Introduction

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Chapter 1: What Community Gives You
Community drives all aspects of today’s customer retention and acquisition agendas. Your community will increase SEO to get your brand in front of new audiences. It brings in first-time customers and keeps them, eventually transforming them into promoters for even more new customers. With social media constantly at peoples’ fingertips, marketing efforts are made or destroyed by a brand’s reputations for customer support and product ideation. Community, therefore, partners word-of-mouth marketing with SEO to drive traffic to your brand’s products, opening the sales cycle earlier.
“Search engines prioritize community content so [that] the conversations taking place today will drive traffic to the community well into the future—unlike Facebook or Twitter postings, which are
more fleeting.”
—Jaime Morocco, Community Manager
at Bluenose Analytics
Your ability to captivate and invite prospective clients is born out of a thriving community of transparent support and cultivated innovation.
Your current customer experience fuels the appeal for future customers. The peer-to-peer conversation begins there, and it’s even more powerful than anything you can do yourself.
“Our online community is a strategic tool to help our customers take full advantage of our software and identify the best ways to use it to meet their unique business goals.”
—Eric Ornas, Vice President, Customer and Product Support at SugarCRM
WHAT COMMUNITY
GIVES YOU
You either know your audience front and back, or you still don’t have a customer community.
Community is a key element in any ideal customer experience. It doesn’t just give your customers a
voice; it provides your audience with the tools and opportunities necessary to go from prospect to customer to advocate.
But community does more than even that. It has the power to shape the customer’s lifecycle.
CHAPTER 1:
MORE THAN 60% OF COMPANIES SURVEYED CURRENTLY HAVE ONLINE CUSTOMER COMMUNITIES, AND 25% MORE PLAN TO DEPLOY ONE WITHIN THE NEXT YEAR.

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Chapter 1: What Community Gives You
WORKING FOR YOUR CUSTOMERS
Most surveyed respondents cite support as the most valuable result
of community strategy, by far.
YOUR CUSTOMERS WORKING FOR YOU
Beyond customer support, however, top-tier companies also use community to brainstorm, evaluate, and innovate products with their audience.
“The Kenandy Community extends the idea of collaboration to online support, allowing Kenandy customers, partners, and employees to answer each other’s questions—and share ideas and best practices— directly from the product.”
—Sandra Kurtzig, CEO, Kenandy
72% garner feedback and insights on how existing products are used.
In fact, nearly 3/4 of Get Satisfaction customers say their communities have significantly increased their knowledge about their customers.
63% discover ongoing voice-of- customer insight.
77% say their communities are a key component to their customer support.
67% collect ideas for new products or features directly from customers’ input.
57% say their communities enable a peer-to-peer support model.

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Chapter 1: What Community Gives You
THE CASE FOR COMMUNITY
DON’T JUST AIM FOR
SUCCESS; CREATE IT.
“Openness and transparency are so important to the customer relationship. There will be issues in any company.
It’s how you deal with those problems that define you.”
—Jessica McDouall, Director of Non-Integrated Services at SPS Commerce
WITHIN 6 MONTHS, SPS COMMERCE SAW:
BY THE END OF THE FIRST YEAR, ITS COMMUNITY ROI INCLUDED:
450+
78,000+
26,000+
registered users
page views
unique visitors
SUPPORT TICKET DEFLECTION
• 28,000 customer contacts
• 300% more than anticipated
FASTER PRODUCT INNOVATION
• 50 customer ideas captured
INCREASED CUSTOMER ENGAGEMENT
• 1,200+ community members
• 71 new members
per month
When SPS Commerce decided to complement its traditional channels with an online community, the software supplier set clear goals ahead of time.
• Expand offered support.
• Enhance the product innovation
and feedback cycle.
• Improve the overall customer experience.
To accomplish its goals, the company identified and leveraged these
best practices:
• Define what success looks like
• Build an internal training plan
• Seed the community with
relevant content
• Market internally
• Communicate externally

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Chapter 1: What Community Gives You
WHAT TO LOOK FOR
IN A VENDOR
A good vendor believes in custom experiences and best practices; a great vendor guides your development and strengthens your conversations with your customers.
YOUR PLATFORM SHOULD
ENABLE YOU TO:
• Save on support costs
• Connect at the right moments
• Amplify endorsements
LOOK FOR:
• Consumer-centric design
• Rapid deployment and time to value
• Affordability
• Guidance across support, sales, marketing,
and innovation
• Integration of key applications and systems
• Mobile reach with multi-device experiences
• Modern engagement from the get-go
WHAT TO LOOK FOR IN
A COMMUNITY PLATFORM
It’s not enough to simply have a vendor you trust. Your vendor needs the capabilities to provide you with the technology for a fruitful and effective branded community platform. Don’t settle for anything less.
YOUR CUSTOMERS EXPECT YOU
TO SHOW UP AND:
Answer their questions
Address their concerns
Solve their problems
Hear their ideas
?
!

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Chapter 2: Modernizing Support Across All Channels
OF SURVEY RESPONDENTS SAY COMMUNITIES PROVIDE BETTER CUSTOMER SERVICE.
72
%
MODERNIZING SUPPORT ACROSS ALL CHANNELS
Your community should be a strong combination of both civilization and wilderness, providing structure and permitting freedom. Community managers should orchestrate helpful forums and conversations. But the right implementation and proper brand culture cultivation can inspire your customers to discover
their own effective solutions and seek ways to help one another.
CHAPTER 2:
WITH COMMUNITY, AN ORGANIZATION’S SUPPORT TEAM SHOULD AIM TO:
• Expand support capabilities at a reduced cost
• Capture insight into customers’ desired support efforts
• Develop a more thorough support system
• Craft a seamless multi-device support experience
THE CUSTOMER EXPERIENCE IS POISED TO BECOME EVEN MORE IMPORTANT.
EXPERIENCE
PRODUCTS
PRICE
TODAY
43
37
20
2020
50
34
16
Source: Walker, “Customer 2020: The Future of B-to-B Customer Experience”
BUSINESS STRATEGY IMPORTANCE, OUT OF 100

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Chapter 2: Modernizing Support Across All Channels
WHAT CUSTOMERS WANT FROM COMMUNITIES
63% of survey respondents say communities differentiate their brands using a social customer experience. The community provides the platform for peer-to-peer conversation and engagement, facilitating customer responses to each other’s questions. That social experience is in high demand for companies, as it saves time and resources and, most importantly, provides more trustwothy user-generated content than what a company will publish themselves.
Customer- Experience Driver
Community as a Support Tool
Multi-channel
availability
Content optimized for discovery in mobile, social, brand website, and search engines
User-friendliness
Easy to navigate, simple interface, search-optimized
Personalization
Incorporates customer profile and
behavioral context
Relevance
Displays content that is relevant to customer needs or stage of lifecycle
Engagement
Enables customers to receive responses from the brand or other customers
“Today, support is all about relationship-building and engagement. It’s not a transactional business and it’s not a cost center. When done right, it’s a value-added service that leads to greater customer loyalty and advocacy as well as better products.”
—Amy Muller, Director of Community and Customer Success at Automatic
OF SURVEY RESPONDENTS SAY
THEIR COMMUNITIES PROVIDE A
SOCIAL SUPPORT EXPERIENCE.
84
%
WHAT IT TAKES TO BE A COMMUNITY LEADER
Source: Get Satisfaction, “The Community Effect (Part I)”

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Chapter 2: Modernizing Support Across All Channels
TRANSFORMING CUSTOMERS INTO ADVOCATES
Your customers turn to you when they have problems, but the most helpful answers often originate from other customers who’ve had the same experiences, either with your brand or another. It offers a relatable peer perspective, rather than a seemingly distant organization, and customers trust other customers more than they
trust brands.
MORE HELP, LESS COST
49% OF SURVEY RESPONDENTS SAY THEIR
COMMUNITIES HAVE REDUCED CUSTOMER
SUPPORT COSTS.
32% REPORT 10–25% IN ANNUAL SAVINGS
Before the financial rewards start pouring in, however, your community must display integrity and incite interest. Identifying and converting customers into advocates is only part of the process. If you expect your customers to want to tell others about your brand, you must incentivize them by offering a community experience that stands on its own. Prove that your brand is invested in your customers’ best interest and eager to provide them with the answers and assets they need to embrace your brand’s culture.
BEST PRACTICES:
• Build numerous entry points
• Display transparency
whenever possible
• Devise a plan for escalated situations
• Call positive attention to
helpful customers
• Add a human touch
WHAT DOES IT MEAN TO ADD
A HUMAN TOUCH?
• Listen. Show your customers that you acknowledge issues and recognize their importance.
• Empathize. Respond authentically
to prove you’re not automating responses at your audience.
• Appreciate. Express gratitude
at your customers’ comments
and engagement, as it makes
a community experience feel
more real.
• Diffuse. Stay positive without overselling the believability of your tone, and prepare situational diffusing statements beforehand so that you’re ready when negative comments appear.
• Personalize. Use engaging,
friendly language—the way people actually talk with one another.
No “corporate speak.”
OF SURVEY RESPONDENTS SAY COMMUNITIES ENABLE A PEER-TO-PEER SUPPORT MODEL THAT IS EFFICIENT,
COST-EFFECTIVE, AND TRUSTWORTHY.
57
%

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Chapter 3: The Marketing Advantage You Need (But Don’t Have)
THE MARKETING ADVANTAGE YOU NEED (BUT DON’T HAVE)
You have invested marketing budget and endless effort in making your website content rich and easy to find. You monitor SEO rankings. Your team is cranking out new content. You are feeding the content “beast” to keep your website fresh and your traffic energetic.
Imagine this: What if you had a whole new source of credible, rich content to help increase your inbound traffic, with no additional work for your marketing team? Enter community.
Community’s peer-to-peer support advantages are obvious. Less obvious is the way a community can dramatically increase your SEO and brand reputation.
CHAPTER 3:
A BUILT-IN EXTENSION
TO YOUR MARKETING TEAM
Community allows you to acknowledge, develop, and nurture relationships with your brand’s advocates. After all, people listen more to other customers than to brands.
77% believe communities would help them better market to current and prospective customers.
69% believe communities would significantly improve their brands.
Even survey respondents who have not yet built online community are considering developing them in efforts to cultivate and strengthen their marketing strategies.
Your community can capture real-time customer conversations about your products and company, offering user-generated content that’s very credible and ranks highly in search engines. Imagine that: fresh, trustworthy content that helps drive your SEO rankings even higher.
74% OF SURVEY RESPONDENTS STRATEGICALLY
USE THEIR COMMUNITIES TO CREATE CONTENT
TO DRIVE ORGANIC SEARCH TRAFFIC.

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Chapter 3: The Marketing Advantage You Need (But Don’t Have)
BUILD YOUR BRAND
CULTURE BEYOND SEO
In addition to making your company easier to find and increasing your brand reputation, community also helps you transform people into advocates who will reach out to prospective new customers on your behalf.
• Customer Service: Hosting conversations within the community makes the content searchable for as long as you want to keep it.
• Product Development: Creating a community
that is open to product discussion benefits your
development process.
When utilized with a branded community, social
media’s word-of-mouth marketing capabilities have dramatically changed how companies can turn
prospects into customers and customers into advocates. Although marketing plans have always relied on advocates to play an integral role in recommending
brands to their families and friends, social media interaction now adds a feverish new avenue for conversation along the way, culminating in a fully
social business marketing experience.
WHAT IF YOU COULD ALSO GENERATE REVENUE?
Communities enable customers to research brands and talk to others
on their own terms, without feeling
any outside pressure or influence. They don’t feel “sold” to.
According to survey respondents,
this method better invites and engages prospective customers earlier in the sales process. Marketers can turn
this to their advantage in the
following ways:
• 54% of survey respondents plan to use their communities to prevent churn or increase up-sell opportunities.
• 50% plan to use their communities
to engage prospects earlier in the sales process.
In the end, the enhanced customer interaction enables companies to expand their communities and help generate revenue.
OF SURVEY RESPONDENTS SAY COMMUNITY FOSTERS
A MORE SOCIAL AND ENGAGING WEBSITE.
SAY THE SOCIAL CUSTOMER EXPERIENCE DIFFERENTIATES
THEIR BRANDS.
68
%
63
%

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Chapter 4: Innovate with the Greatest Consultants (Your Customers)
INNOVATE WITH THE GREATEST CONSULTANTS (YOUR CUSTOMERS)
Your customers want to work with you. Through a community, they can express interest in brainstorming, collaborating, developing, and fine-tuning your products and services. They’re ready to dissect your brand culture. They can tell you what works and what doesn’t. Even better: Your customers can innovate and pitch new ideas they want to see your brand pursue—and it doesn’t have to be expensive, difficult, or rare.
63% OF SURVEY RESPONDENTS
SAY COMMUNITY GIVES THEM
THE MEANS TO COLLECT ONGOING
VOICE-OF-CUSTOMER INSIGHT.
CHAPTER 4:
GUIDING DECISIONS IN INNOVATION
Customers are always game to try new items during pre-launches, but they have a further vested interest in your brand beyond that. They’ve got strong opinions and are ready to share them in-depth. After using a brand’s products for a while, an audience likely has ideas for improvement and for entirely new products to add
to the market.
THEY’LL GIVE FEEDBACK ON PRODUCTS OLD AND NEW.
• 72% of survey respondents utilize communities for feedback and insight on how existing products are used.
• 68% of survey respondents use communities to collect ideas directly from customers for new products or features.
“Once you have the community working together,
you can harness it’s power and let it inform.”
—Madhukar Govindaraju, Vice President of Product and Software Development
at Trinet
IN FACT, WITHIN ITS COMMUNITY, TRINET SAW:
• Deeper understanding of customers’ product needs
• Continuous customer-generated product and feature ideas
• Real-time customer feedback on product plans
• Accelerated innovation cycles

15. Chapter 4: Innovate with the Greatest Consultants (Your Customers)
PRIVATE COMMUNITIES
FOR PRE-LAUNCHES
AND BETA TESTS
Customers are ready to try new items, bringing their user history and brand expectations to the table for discussion. With your community manager’s guidance and involvement from your product team, that feedback can become exceptionally comprehensive. Depending on the community recruitment strategy, it’s possible for companies to eliminate an official campaign launch’s guesswork about audience reaction and satisfaction.
47% OF SURVEY RESPONDENTS SAY COMMUNITY HELPS PROVIDE FEEDBACK ON NEW PROTOTYPES OR BETA PRODUCTS BEFORE THEY’RE RELEASED.
INFLUENTIAL IDEAS AND INSIGHTS ON NEXT STEPS
They might not be professional experts or consultants, but your customers’ guidance holds particular weight. Their input is invaluable to your brand’s future, and organizations’ higher-ups are finally taking notice, according to “The Customer-Activated Enterprise,” a report by the IBM Institute for Business Value.
HOW MUCH STRATEGIC INFLUENCE
DO YOUR CUSTOMERS WIELD?
15
ACCORDING TO CEOS, CUSTOMERS ARE SECOND ONLY
TO A COMPANY’S C-SUITES.
53%
55%
78%
C-Suite
Customers
Board of Directors
Corporate Strategy Function
Non-Executive Senior Leadership
Key External Business Partners
Parent Company
23%
26%
44%
25%
Source: IBM Institute for Business, “The Customer-Activated Enterprise”

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Your customers are now integral to your business and product evolution.
According to the IBM Institute for Business Value report, 90% of CXOs plan to collaborate much more extensively with customers in the next 3 to 5 years.
In fact, CXOs expect to see a very shifted business landscape in the near future.
Chapter 4: Innovate with the Greatest Consultants (Your Customers)
“The community is helping our product management teams uncover and validate what’s most important to customers, flesh out new product requirements and better prioritize
what goes into future releases.”
—Jessica McDouall, Director of
Non-Integrated Services at SPS Commerce
UPON PROVIDING A COMMUNITY-WIDE “SHARE AN IDEA” BUTTON, SPS COMMERCE GENERATED MORE THAN 50 NEW CUSTOMER IDEAS IN A 12-MONTH PERIOD.
That’s right. Your brand’s future depends on your ability to engage customers and harness their ideas, making communities an integral part of your company’s
customer-driven process of product improvement and innovation.
Source: IBM Institute for Business, “The Customer-Activated Enterprise”
Smaller partner base
Larger partner network
73%
11%
Face-to-face interaction
Social/digital interaction
68%
20%
Partnering to increase efficiency
Partnering to increase value
61%
25%
Focus on customers as segments
Focus on customers as individuals
54%
33%
Operational control
Organizational openness
52%
28%
THE NEW CUSTOMER LANDSCAPE
“Community is a great reflection of what’s going on with customers, and it’s one of
the best ways to get at the subtleties of
how people use our products.”
—Daniel Foster, Social Media Strategist at TechSmith
BY USING ITS COMMUNITY TO DRIVE MORE THAN 16,000 CONVERSATIONS, TECHSMITH:
• Doubled the number of subject matter experts
answering questions
• Saved up to $500,000 in product testing costs
• Received more than 3,000 product idea submissions

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Chapter 5: Learn What B2B Tech Companies Already Know
LEARN WHAT B2B TECH COMPANIES ALREADY KNOW
Known for effectively hearing and harnessing the voice of the customer, B2B tech companies have been ahead of the game for years. The industry regularly catches onto user trends early and has continued to deploy, innovate, and perfect its audience approaches long before many other industries first experiment.
B2B tech companies have long recognized the great change that the B2B setup presents as a whole.
CHAPTER 5:
THE EVOLUTION OF WHAT MATTERS
One area in which the tech industry has particularly excelled is community-driven support, marketing, and ideation.
B2B cloud software companies don’t just utilize community well; they depend on it. Cultivating a branded community has long been established as an essential component of the B2B tech industry’s customer engagement strategy, and it has long been established as such.
• With a 61% average, that’s higher than other major industries.
• And nearly 70% of the B2B tech organizations that provide user communities have had them for at least a year.
OF B2B TECH COMPANIES AGREE THAT COMMUNITY HAS SIGNIFICANTLY INCREASED THEIR KNOWLEDGE OF THEIR CUSTOMERS.
Within the B2B tech industry, customers are vocal about their concerns and their ideas for solutions to device or software issues. They value being heard.
74
%
¾ OF B2B TECH COMPANIES FOSTER ONLINE CUSTOMER COMMUNITIES.

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Chapter 5: Learn What B2B Tech Companies Already Know
THE ROI OF B2B TECH COMMUNITIES
B2B tech companies recognize the many benefits that investing in community brings their organizations, as the industry shows high percentages of proper and thorough ROI.
THE RESPONSE FROM 100+ B2B TECH INDUSTRY PROFESSIONALS TO GET SATISFACTION’S
MARKET SURVEY REVEALS OVERWHELMINGLY POSITIVE RESULTS FROM COMPANIES THAT
HAVE IMPLEMENTED ONLINE CUSTOMER COMMUNITIES.
MORE THAN HALF OF SURVEY RESPONDENTS SAY USER- GENERATED CONTENT MORE CREDIBLY SUPPORTS THEIR BRANDS THAN EMPLOYEE- GENERATED CONTENT.
MARKETING
66% of B2B tech survey respondents say communities create content that drives organic search traffic.
66% say communities strengthen their customers’ opinions of their brands.
57% believe communities help prevent churn and increase up-sell opportunities.
53% say communities provide more engaging website elements.
50% plan to use communities to engage prospects earlier in the sales process.
SUPPORT
74% of B2B tech survey respondents say communities are a key component in their customer support efforts.
74% say communities offer their customers a better customer experience.
73% say communities help provide a social support experience.
62% anticipate that communities will use
mobile and tablet devices to provide support
in the future.
IDEATION
75% of B2B tech survey respondents say they use their communities to cull customer feedback and ideas.
74% believe their communities have helped to significantly improve their knowledge of their customers.

19. Conclusion
THINK ABOUT IT
This survey’s findings show how online communities can help to significantly enhance your customers’ experience. You can deliver superior customer support by leveraging credible, user-generated content—improving your brand visibility while generating product ideas you never thought of on your own.
Customer communities are uniquely capable of providing this exceptional experience. Bring your customers closer to each other, with your company at the center.
When you unleash the benefits of community, your company will naturally rise above the competition in the eyes of the people who matter most: your customers.
COMMUNITY’S ROI IN BUSINESS IS UNDENIABLE. WHEN YOU EXAMINE
THE BOTTOM LINE,
IT’S IMPORTANT TO REMEMBER ONE THING:
A GOOD COMMUNITY VENDOR IS PRICELESS.
19
LEARN MORE
Interested in taking the next step to explore what an online community can do for you? Want to deliver exceptional, differentiated customer experiences with a community platform? Get Satisfaction enables you to create engaging customer experiences by fostering online conversations about your products and services. From Hootsuite to Intuit, Prezi, SPS Commerce, Sonos, and more, companies of all sizes rely on Get Satisfaction’s community platform to provide social customer support, increase brand visibility, and build better products.
Contact us for a custom demonstration and a personalized ROI calculation: (877) 339-3997.
CONCLUSION