What does it mean to deliver an exceptional customer experience? That question is extremely nuanced, which is why this is part four in a four-part blog series dedicated to best practices for enhancing your customer relationships. In part one, we discussed how the shift in customer expectations on support is pushing businesses toward deploying self-service platforms. In part two, we explored the impact that connecting a community to your help desk had on customer service.

But where should businesses start? Launching a next-generation community may seem like a daunting task, but identifying a platform that is easy to launch and extensible will save time and money in creating a community that grows with your business.

Create a community plan and get executive buy-in

In this hyperconnected world, companies strive to deliver a customer experience that meets the rising expectations of consumers. Businesses are turning to community solutions since they are extensible and can tackle a wide variety of use cases. Those in charge of a community face two important challenges: sustaining engagement in their community and proving ROI of the community.

These challenges can be addressed by focusing in on three key areas. The first area is to obtain executive sponsorship to prioritize adoption and engagement with internal stakeholders and external customers. The second area is to ensure business processes are integrated into the community as part of the customer’s journey. Finally, the third area is to have a Community Manager who oversees the daily health of the community.  

Move at the speed of your customers

In order to enable Community Managers to keep pace with your customers, a templated approach is recommended because templates don’t require any coding experience to manage. Community Templates for Community Cloud are game changers because they allow any company to build a fully branded and responsive community that looks great on any device. Not every company has an extensive IT department to deploy new platforms, which is why WYSIWYG editors such as Lightning Community Builder are equally important. Drag-and-drop technology helps companies keep development costs down and accelerate deployment since no coding is required.

Extensibility is critical once the community is launched in order to meet the growing demands of customers. The easiest way to increase the community’s functionality is by investing in a platform with a strong ecosystem of components. For example, Lightning Components for Community Cloud allow businesses to easily drag and drop widgets built by partners right into the community.

Components like Livefyre’s Media Wall, which allows customers to import their Twitter accounts, allows businesses to stay abreast of the conversation happening around their brand to serve customers better. CloudCraze’s Commerce on Salesforce, which integrates the shopping cart experience into the community, eliminates unnecessary clicks navigating to a commerce portal once product interest is piqued in the community. Extending functionality with components saves development time and resources while streamlining the customer’s experience with your brand.

A community from scratch in just four days

Australian company eWay provides a safe, reliable, and frictionless online payment gateway to help businesses worldwide grow and thrive. Built on a commitment to personal service and support, eWay now handles a rapidly growing market share of online payments in Australia. With such enormous growth, eWay needed service capabilities that stayed ahead of the growing customer base’s expectations — which means providing self-service options available at any time and with any device.

With Community Cloud’s easy-to-use Lightning Community Builder and Community Templates, eWay was able to build a completely customized and mobile-optimized community with third-party and custom apps included — and no coding or IT required — in just four days. Now eWay customers can find answers to their questions within the self-service community, quickly and easily. As eWay’s customer base grows and their expectations change, eWay can transform the community using drag-and-drop Lightning Components from Community Cloud and the Salesforce partner ecosystem.

“Our customers are growing, and so are we — it’s a beautiful thing,” said Matt Bullock, eWay Founder and CEO.

By establishing a scalable community and integrating with your sales, marketing, and service channels, your business is uniquely positioned to maximize each and every customer touchpoint and connect to your customers in a whole new way. Learn more about how you can get your community up and running faster by downloading the free e-book.