What exactly is a customer community? (+Examples) |

One-directional customer relationships are so 2005. The most successful brands of our time don't just talk at their clients, but they interact with them and build meaningful connections. And this is how a community of customers comes into.

In this article we'll discuss the concept of customer community, based on academic research to show what makes a customer community distinctive. The article will discuss the benefits of a support community for customers and provide community relationship examples.

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What exactly is a community?

A customer community is a area that facilitates a connection between a brand or company and their customers. It could allow questions and answers, knowledge exchange, customer education or promotional opportunities, or assistance with product or service issues and feedback. The relationship can be developed in different ways, like email, a website and social media or even a specific online forum.

The key word here is RELATED. Good customer communities aren't just locations for brands to lob sales pitches. The old saying is that people want to do business with those they "know, like, and trust" and that's the way a community of customers works best. It provides the opportunity for the trust of customers to increase.

Customer communities are theoretically described as digging into what's called " Social Identity Theory :" when people become an integral part of any social group-that includes great customer communities, they feel a sense of belonging, purpose, self-worth, and identity.

Below are a few stunning examples of the kind of customer communities, whether free, enterprise communities or paid brand communities-can achieve...

• A non-profit onboarded 9,000 National members.        
  
• A faith-based community expanded to 470 leaders across more than 67 countries.        
  
• An entrepreneurship org. launched to 5,000 members and made back their initial capital investment in a community app for customers in just 2 half weeks.      
  
• A health-focused launch to 100 high-ticket members increased the ARR by $40,000.        
  
• One community started a 13-week add-on course and added $100k to income in just two months.        
  
• One financial community for personal use generated $130K in five days, using their most recent course.        
  
• A social-impact SAAS company incorporated a community-based customer application with regular meetings and witnessed a 70 percent increase in contributions & engagement.        
  

What is a Customer Community? isn't

The theoretical basis for customer-centric communities can help us realize why great customer communities are not your email list or even your Facebook group. For you to reap the many benefits of community, you need to have at least created members who are comfortable and feel they belong.

In this regard below are some the things that a community of customers is not:

• An email list        
  
• The amount of followers on social media you're following        
  
• Members of your Facebook group        
  
• The number of people who liked your post on your last post        
  
• The number that is used by the people who call your customer service number        
  
• Your chatbot users        
  

As we've established that the foundation of customer community is being a part of it, it's easy to see that these interactions aren't part of a customers' community. All of them are interactions with your business, but they don't carry a sense of belonging.

The closest we can get here could be a Facebook groups  however, in this group, we see lacking brand loyalty and belonging. It's impossible to utilize Facebook to create the type of dynamic relationships and user-driven involvement that creates a true brand-related community.

Why you should build a customer community

    The advantages of having a community for customers

Access member-led growth

A new generation of businesses with high impact built on the concept of membership communities. Indeed, communities are an extremely profitable business model that McKinsey has identified it as the most effective business model for the 2020s and a flywheel for communities.

There has been a surge of member-led growth businesses-including customer communities. When they are paid for, they could generate incredible revenue streams through recurring transactions. The community, however, puts development into autopilot.

It's been referred to as community as "a company that is growing its own self," because the combination of community-generated content by members, energy generated by members and AI-powered tools that simplify managing community implies that it's easier than ever to create the human connections that drive your business.

The secret is that big brands like Logo, Apple, and Nike are all leveraging which is resulting in massive profits. (See the following examples. )

Forget about funnels. There's nothing like a customer community to build a brand automatically.

Improve the brand's loyalty

The study of 2022 concluded that thriving brand communities have such a profound impact on brand loyalty-because the brand community becomes an important aspect of a person's identity. Actually, the strong link between social identity and loyalty to brands is a deliberate process that can influence perceived value and customer satisfaction.

The process of transforming customers, subscribers or even followers to members shouldn't take lightly. Contrary to the relationship types, members belong.

Belonging instead of spending is the most important aspect of establishing a flywheel for community.

Improve CLV

It is well-known that the customer's life-time value (CLV) is driven through retention, however only a handful of brands get it right. A study conducted by SurveySparrow found that the top companies had around a 94% retention ratio-even though retention was as low as 4% in some sectors.

Although brand loyalty is valuable as a whole but it also leads directly to increasing your lifetime customer value. This should be a given, because retention and connection-again, transforming buyers to members-will increase your CLV more than anything otherwise.

It makes it easy to sell your.

One of the things which the study of flywheels in community demonstrated was that selling becomes radically easier when you have a group of people.

The standard sales funnel focuses on pushing all of your potential leads through sales sequence, losing more and more until you find the small percentage that will buy.

In a community of customers there's no need to make this. Most of your "leads" remain friendly, and until they leave the community, they'll stay in your ecosystem whether they're ready to buy yet or not.

This creates an incredibly wealthy sales environment that doesn't require you to rely on deadlines or pressure simply keep cultivating the relationship and delivering value. You'll be amazed at the incredible results you get whenever you attempt to sell an item. Some of our communities inform we that they've got people who want to know what they can buy.

That brings us back to...

Find the best feedback

Feedback from customers is essential. However, HubSpot's research team discovered an average of 42% firms never survey their customers or gather feedback!

What if there was an easier way to gather feedback rather than making surveys hoping for a response?

The customer community. We spoke to women's clothing label Oiselle Volee about their customer community, they told us that they had something truly amazing. The Oiselle customer community offered members an area to connect with. It also provided an important feedback loop for the development of products. They could get instant feedback about their product concepts or new products. Sometimes, they even had customers requesting things they'd never ever thought of.

Customer service should be on autopilot

We've highlighted Apple as a great customer-centric example in the following. Apple makes use of their user community to provide customer support and even gamifies the entire process so that the most dedicated Apple customers join to answer questions for free!

It's a brilliant approach to bring the brand's loyalty into action, which allows them to harness the feeling of belonging to the brand that customers are feeling for the brand to an effective way of bringing customer service live.

Instead of dialing a 1-800 number or waiting for chatbots, users are able to get answers through the forum. That's powerful.

Make transformations happen

Customers purchase products or service because they are looking for something. The most common thing will result in a change of some sort, whether it's a clean kitchen (i.e. oven cleaner) or to shed 10 pounds (ie. running gear) or to build the perfect garden (i.e. a gardening publication), or to spend weekend days in the garden with their loved ones (i.e. grilling out). ).

However, just because someone purchases a tent, it doesn't necessarily mean that they are able to set up camp. This is where the importance of a customer community comes in. If you are able to go above the transaction, and help your customers actually succeed with your service or product, you will have raving supporters who'll share the news with them about your business to their acquaintances. In short, a community of customers isn't just to make more sales. It's about helping customers succeed.

There's more! A vibrant customer-based community can also give you useful feedback on your product and services. This is feedback would otherwise be required to purchase.

Because of these and other reasons the idea of creating a community for customers is a great idea. What are you wasting time for?

    Find out how you can make use of it to build a vibrant community of customers here!

Harness real engagement

If your notion of customer engagement is that your social media posts have 15 people liking them, you're playing the wrong game. A customer community can create real engagement with customers, and create relationships with customers-remember, we said that our goal was for a customer to be part of the community.

It's incredible when you are able to take off the treadmill of content of social media and create genuine engagement, which people love.

8 awesome examples of community-based customer services

1. Topstitch Makers

There are some brilliant examples of community-based customer services from here on . Check out Leigh Metcalf, who built the Mighty Network (AKA a "sewcial network") as an expansion of her fabric and sewing business, Topstitch Studio and Lounge. Her Mighty Network, Topstitch Makers, offers courses and weekly sewalongs that help members to sew their way to success.

2. Duolingo

Duolingo is the application which made learning a language fun simple, quick, and much free (freemium)! Behind the scenes, Duolingo has a dedicated volunteers who dedicate themselves to answering user language questions and making the app better.

Based on the notion that EVERYONE has access to language learning, these passionate polyglots even volunteer their time to incorporate additional languages and programs onto the site!

3. Oiselle

Oiselle is a women's running apparel brand that wanted to go beyond just selling merchandise and help its customers to connect with other people. The brand has built an Mighty Network, Oiselle Volee, around the joy of running. Initially, it was a place to find a running partner, but the spread of the disease has expanded the scope of what the Oiselle community can do; it's 4000 members who can access a place to belong via real conversations, and vibrant virtual gatherings.

4. Lego

Lego is a multibillion-dollar brand that is loved by children for the amazing building potential and is referred to by parents as little mines that can hurt you whenever you walk on them.

Just kidding!

In fact, Lego is loved around the globe by both children and adults alike, and an army of dedicated builders offer their thoughts on the Lego customer community. Members can even choose which Lego builds should get the stamp of approval to become authentic Lego kits!

5. Peloton

Peloton gained prominence in the midst of the epidemic when we were all trying to exercise within our home. Peloton created a thriving user community for exercise. Users can swap scores, have video chats throughout their workouts, and also encourage one another on the Peloton Facebook group.

6. Adobe

Adobe products are dedicated to creating: photos, videos music, photos, and much more. They're industry standards. However, ask any person who has ever had the pleasure of using one of the Adobe product and they'll be able to tell you they're difficult to understand.

The Adobe community for customers offers a forum for users to ask questions and get answers, as well as suggestions for getting the most of their software. The company's slogan "Come to help, get encouraged," pretty much sums their philosophy, which begins by helping users to understand their software as well as taking the user on a path to learning how to master their craft.

7. Apple

Apple has built a thriving user community, which doubles as a customer support platform. The company has even made it a game so that contributors get more points, and also have access to greater community moderation features as they move up levels. Participants who make it to top levels also get access to an exclusive community.

If you're contemplating it, using games to improve your customer support such that your customers would want to spend time providing each other with support is an excellent use of a customer community.

8. Shopify

For a great customer community that is active, look no further than Shopify. Because Shopify assists their clients in building shops to market their products, the Shopify community is dedicated to providing training and knowledge-building by answering frequently asked questions, as well as even organizing live gatherings.

Do you want to establish your own community of customers?

No matter if your community for customers will be a non-profit, enterprise community or paying for a membership that brings additional revenue Come build using Mighty!

Mighty brings together courses, content, community, and commerce. Our flexible Spaces let you create a community for customers unlike any other. We mix with chat, discussions, chat, livestreaming and online events and classes (if you wish to). Choose the features you want (and turn the rest off ).

Mighty gives you a suite of member-management tools to make it easy to run the community, and our AI community-engine-Mighty Co-Host(tm)-automates things like member profiles, landing pages, course outlines, and even discussion questions. It's significantly easier to establish a vibrant customer-centric community in less than a few hours work a week.

In addition, with Mighty Pro it comes with G2's top-ranked community software on the basis of your own brand-named app. This is your application on the App Store and Google Play Store. Furthermore, when building with Mighty Pro, you'll work alongside our team of Account Executives and Community Strategists who have scaled 7-figure creator brands and 8+-figure subscription companies.

Contact us today and we'll show you how we can build.