In my previous life I worked at Monster.com in their Government Solutions division. My title was Manager of Client Service for Strategic Accounts, and my role was to serve as the manager for the Customer Advocacy team. So what does this really mean? My team and myself were there to support our clients with the software, and to help grow the user community.
In this role I had a chance to see first hand some of the real power of communities. In working with senior management we stressed the values of communities, and all that they bring to the company. We had several different ideas that we tried to put in place to help this community grow. For Monster we had several goals behind engaging our users, and I think that all of these served both the company as well as the community.
Our goals for our community were:
- Engage our customers, and show them there is an open line of communication to Monster.
This was crucial for Monster. One of the easiest things you can do is to reach out and stay constantly connected to your user base. The benefits of staying connected are so large it could be its own separate post. I worked with my team to ensure that we looked at and responded to all customer activities and issues, and made sure our entire management chain were aware of any issues.
- Provide a way to gather people around the yearly user conference.
There us no better way to rally around your company or product then a user conference. Using your community to build up hype about a conference is a great way to get people connecting prior to the conference. This allows you to get people to meet and establish relationships prior to the conference, as well as extend the life of the conference after the conference.
- Create an environment where they can provide input about the product.
Product adoption is always an important factor with any company. By allowing your users to comment on new features, as well as shape the direction of the product you are helping in their overall adoption of the product. Our product management department allowed the users to have a series of credits where they could help decide the features that would be in up and coming releases. In addition we consulted them on each new product release, where the business analysts would share the high level requirements and get their insights.
- Give the user the ability to interact with one another and share their experiences and industry knowledge.
The community included almost every government agency, but was still a close knit community. The federal HR arena is a constant changing environment, and the ability for people to stay on top of new regulations is crucial. Within our community we had several separate sub communities that allowed people to share their experiences, as well as brain storm and try to work on the implementation of new laws and regulations.
I have worked with community building prior to working at Monster, and along the way I have learned a great deal. I think all companies need to take the time to evaluate the benefits of building communities around their product or service. Building communities is not always an easy thing, and there are a great deal of challenges that occur along the way, but when you do it right there is a great deal of power in communities.
Share your community building stories, what have you learned along the way?
Peace
Frank
Photo Credit – skyfaller
