Innovation Reactor

Online Customer Experience Innovation: Creating Community

Nowadays your customers are more likely to trust a complete stranger’s product review, because they prefer to know what other people think rather than being shown “branded” marketing messages. By developing an online community where customers create the content, share information and interact, your company can deepen customer engagement and influence the purchase decision.

In a recent blog post Chris Brogan says “communities empower users of products or services, or people with like-minded interests to interact”. The idea is to create a customer-centric social network and community tools on your company website. Since this will empower customers to make informed purchase decisions and differentiate your brand in the marketplace. Below are some ideas for creating online communities.

Customer ratings and reviews ~ companies like eBay, Amazon, Zappos and Expedia use detailed seller ratings and testimonials to improve customer information, increase product relevance and build trust. Since consumers naturally follow the crowd and like understanding the selections and preferences of others, try creating a simple customer ratings system for your products and allow space for customers to write a review. This will engage power shoppers who read reviews and ultimately spend more online.

Email-a-friend ~ provide the ability for your customers to send their favorite products or your special offers to friends and family.

Member-to-member news ~ allow members of your community to post notices to other members.

Member content ~ let customers post video, fan mail, product usage or travel tips by creating a customer discussion board or user forum.

Connect to social networking sites ~ allow customers to share the content with others via feeds to Facebook, MySpace, Linked-in, StumbleUpon or Digg.

Company blog or Twitter feed ~ let customers follow your latest news and keep up-to-date with new products, developments or special offers.

By creating an online community and allowing customers to share valuable product insights with one another you can significantly influence the buying decision process, create engagement with your brand and deepen the online customer experience.

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Audience or Community

Online Customer Experience Innovation: Online Tools

Online tools are a great way for your customers to engage and interact with your brand.

Maki from Dosh Dosh suggests creating a powerful long-term social media marketing strategy by developing services, tools and free complementary services. These are not only a great way to enhance your customer experience online and to drive engagement, but you can get some real customer feedback to optimize your products and communications. Here are some ideas for online services and tools for your website.

Calculators ~ these days customers want more control and to make the most of their money. Calculators allow customers to interact, get more information, visualize savings or calculate shipping costs. They're a great way to connect emotionally and capture more sales.

Personal Online Dashboard ~ let’s customers track their purchase history with you, savings earned, payments made, special offers and to update their product preferences. Include other items like recent news, latest events or new product features, shopping tip of the day, product discounts, daily deals or the hottest items other customers are buying right now.

Customer Wishlist ~ let your customers create a list of products they would like from your store or suggest products that you don’t currently stock. You can include product reviews, video and shopping ideas to provide inspiration.

Customer Lists ~ create simple templates that allow your customers to make a family budget, shopping list or to create travel plans. Make it easy for them to add images, maps and then send, print, store or update.

Customer Alerts ~ allow customers to sign up for email alerts to receive information and the latest news on your products and services

Product or price comparison tools ~ customers want to select and easily compare products and prices so product or price comparison tools are excellent. To enhance sales multi-product landing pages work great and generate a lift in conversion by providing more customer information and product choice.

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Building Complementary Services: A Powerful Long-Term Social Media Marketing Strategy