Customers are our Kings (although apparently in this picture, I’m the Queen!)
Every once in a while, a company hits a milestone that truly makes a CEO stand back and smile. Our Customer Success Summit on May 2nd was one of those days.
We spent the day with more than 150 of our customers and partners listening, learning, and sharing (essentially a live version of a customer community). Never before have we heard from so many customers about their experiences with Get Satisfaction—our product, processes, and our team.
It was exhilarating to learn about the impact they are seeing using our online community platform. Customers like SPS Commerce, Applegate, Kenandy, and Citrix shared the best practices they’ve developed in building community that both strengthens their relationships with their customers as well as with their internal stakeholders.
It was a day of the familiar (our team presented all the practical information we’ve learned through six years and 70,000 communities, and I announced our new Dummies book, which sums it all up in one easy-to-consume guide) and the unexpected (our photo booth with throne and props evoked some hilarious responses).
Product innovation was a key theme of the day. We were all excited (and proud) to get a preview of our new capabilities from our CTO, David Rowley. As a result of his presentation, even more new product ideas were generated from our customers. The collaboration was fun to be part of.
VP of Product Marketing, Scott Hirsch, sheds light on how to drive and measure the business value of community.
IDC analyst, Michael Fauscette, gave us all an education in why customer community is an essential piece of any customer experience strategy. He shared how a company can leverage online community to build true engagement at every stage in the customer life cycle.
Many attendees were pleasantly surprised to learn how community can break down business silos to foster teamwork within a company. For example, attendees loved the presentation on how community teams can bring product and development teams into the community to get valuable product feedback, conduct mini focus groups, beta testing, and more.
Although many of our customers use Get Satisfaction for support, two marketing executives—Chris Selland, VP of Marketing at HP Vertica, and Jascha Kaykas-Wolff, CMO of Mindjet—talked about how community is helping them create a cultural shift both inside their organizations and with their customers. The vision these executives have for community as a guiding force to connect more closely with their customers whenever and wherever made us all proud.
Get Satisfaction customer, Ben Norris, wins the award for the best conference sketchnotes! Learn more on his site: www.benjaminsnorris.com!
There was also a wealth of information for those working with community on a more day-to-day basis—from our own Senior Community Manager, Caty Kobe, sharing her insider knowledge about the skills, tools, and best practices for managing a thriving community, to industry veteran, Stephen Mann, teaching us how to use community to handle thousands of inquiries through self-service and peer-to-peer support.
From the inception of our product six years ago, Get Satisfaction has been central to helping companies both large and small build trust-based, long-lasting relationships with their customers. It was extremely gratifying to hear so many examples of how companies are using community to build loyal customer relationships that translate to explicit business value as well. The voice of the customer has never been louder or more accessible, and we’re so honored to be trusted by so many great companies to be the medium for that voice.
So please keep the conversation going and join us in our Get Satisfaction Community in topics we have created to continue the dialog:
How do you measure the value of community?
How can you optimize self-service support with community?
How can you leverage the voice of the customer as marketing content?
