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Stimulate User Communities and Social Networking: A Callidus Case Study
October 08, 2008
Edited by Stacy Straczynski
According to Wikipedia, the definition of a community is a group of interacting organisms sharing an environment and common interests. In business terms, "community" can include groups of customers, partners and employees, all interacting to benefit each other. With the emergence of Web 2.0 technologies, these community interactions have even more meaning: They can drive product development, improve tech support and bring together people normally separated by several time zones and thousands of miles.
The Company: Callidus Software
Over the past 10 years, Callidus Software has not only cultivated meaningful relationships with its Sales Performance Management (SPM) community, but has also offered ways for community members to connect with each other. From dedicated account managers, to user groups and advisory boards, Callidus has seen its community slowly evolve into a large network of experienced professionals.
The Problem: Connecting Customers
The question became: How could the company help its users connect and interact, exchange experiences and leverage their knowledge in even more useful ways? While Callidus continued to gather valuable insights from various groups and people, it needed a way to quickly take these insights and share them with the broader customer base in a real-time manner. In addition, with the growth of the company's customer base and the SPM industry, customers were asking for better, faster ways to gain access to other customers, Callidus experts and general SPM knowledge.
After much research—and advisement from customers—a solution was reached: utilize social networking tools to build an online community for Callidus. This would not only be a benefit to the customer base, but a competitive advantage as well—Callidus knew that it would be the only company in its industry to offer access to this level of SPM expertise. With the evolution of Web 2.0 and social networking, it made sense to create an interactive customer community to best meet the needs of the customer base.
The Solution: Creating an Online User Community
Naturally, there were some initial concerns about giving up control over all of the discussion among Callidus customers. The two most obvious risks were liability and message control. In a truly open community, customers should feel free to provide companies with candid feedback, which in return can then become an issue for a company. The legal concerns about liability were related to issues one could find on any other Web site—stalking, bad information, etc.
Open discussion also might leave a company vulnerable to competitors gaining access to such a forum potentially hosting very valuable information. The insights that users could gather from the community, and the connections that customers would make with each other, could not only help the customers, but would allow the company to better meet its customers' needs and hopefully bring greater customer loyalty. Callidus decided to go for it.
The objectives were very clear when developing the community. First, Callidus needed to enable community networking and provide the best possible SPM knowledgebase. Second, the company wanted to extend its marketing reach, as well as create another avenue to gain valuable product development feedback in a timely manner. Third, Callidus wanted to enhance the tech support experience.
The community, called TrueConnect, was rolled out in March 2008. In the months since the rollout, the response to the community has been dramatic with over 50% of Callidus' customer base from more than 20 countries active in TrueConnect. The initial rollout was to the customer base, with limited membership for Callidus employees. (While it's important to have enough presence from company employees to stimulate interaction, the company committed to not "stalking" community members.) Callidus' ultimate vision is a community where its customers, prospective customers, employees, partners and industry analysts can come together to easily network and collaborate—any time and from any place.
Results: Community Networking and Knowledgebase
The community networking and knowledgebase has been a great success. The networking features and discussion groups consistently fall into the top 10 visited Web sites of the community on a weekly basis. Customers from over 20 countries can share their expertise on Callidus Software and SPM-related topics through the discussion groups and wikis.
TrueConnect has also had a positive impact on Callidus customer programs:
• Discussion Groups. Each customer group has its own discussion group within TrueConnect, which essentially creates several sub-communities. In these user groups, customers are spread out across the world—in the virtual world, they connect immediately, and don't have to wait for an official meeting to do their networking. With the discussion groups, customers can reach out to the entire group, across the world, at any time to share, discuss and collaborate on various topics. Recently, there was a post from a telecommunications customer interested in telco-specific sales compensation benchmarking by Callidus Software's customers in the same industry. There was immediate response from other customers—and now there is a customer-led project underway to do benchmarking.
• Customer Suppport. Callidus is also using the online community to deliver an enhanced support experience, allowing its customers to use the community messaging functionality alongside the discussion forums to ask questions of our tech support, product marketing teams, or to each other. In this way, these kinds of dialogues could then happen in real time—versus having customers wait for windows of time to call or meet to discuss the issues. Feedback could be initiated on the outcome of these dialogues—and the result is a faster, better customer experience. Already, Callidus' customers experience the benefits of tapping into the expertise of other customers for some of their more basic tech support questions.
• Product Development Benefits. The community approach changes this entire process. Now, private networks are set up inside TrueConnect and users can immediately share ideas. Callidus can project-manage the process of product genesis by setting timeframes and spelling out clearly what it expects from contributors when reviewing additional functionality or whole new modules. Using the capabilities of TrueConnect to foster customer collaborative efforts made for a much more interactive—and rapid— product genesis.
The Future: Bringing Analysts and Partners into the Community
Callidus has only just begun to tap the potential of its user community. In the near future, the company will encourage its partners to create interest groups that advance thinking on their particular business domain, and help drive initiatives relating to SPM. Callidus also sees value in inviting industry analysts to participate in this community, so they can see first-hand what the customer experience is like, and participate in thought leadership forums. Over the next several months, Callidus expects to find many new ways to tap into the rich and exciting information exchange going on within TrueConnect—for the good of the customers, and the good of the company.
Sidebar: 5 Tips for a Successful Online Community
The task of creating an engaging, active community starts with a strong, loyal customer base, a company's greatest asset.
1. Content. Routinely post useful articles and start insightful discussions. This will attract users and give them a reason to stay and participate.
2. Usability. Make your site easy to use. If your site is even a little complicated users will leave to find one that is less difficult.
3. Value. Focus on the purpose of your community and bring meaningful elements to your users. Show users the benefits of your community.
4. Audience. Your content reflects the type of people visiting your site. Make sure the content applies to the people you want in your community.
5. Criticism. Be open to criticism and use it to improve your community. Address problems quickly to maintain user satisfaction.
Sales & Marketing Management Magazine
This article is brought to you by Sales & Marketing Management, the leading authority for executives in the sales and marketing field.
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