1. State of the Profession Series
Case studies from the world’s top customer advocacy
and engagement programs, showing how to grow the
business in today’s buyer-empowered world.
ActivatingCustomerEngagementand
Advocacy:TheCommunityEffect
By Wendy Lea,
Executive Chairman,
Get Satisfaction

2. 1
The rise of social has changed customer expectations of how
they want to interact with companies and brands across the
buyer's journey. To date, much emphasis has been placed
on the customer relationship (social support) and customer
acquisition (social marketing). But Wendy, one of the most
highly respected thought leader on the future of customer relationships who coined
the term, "Community Effect," will show how that can activate powerful customer
advocacy. She'll provide practical examples from customer-centric companies,
such as Intuit, Citrix Online, and Extreme Networks who are uncovering major
opportunities to create communities of customers and prospects—regardless of
their stage in the buy cycle—and actually "operationalize" advocacy.
The key to success is to create engaging customer experiences that are hosted by
the company and happen where the customer can get maximum benefit—on their
own website, in the product, in a community platform, or even in the purchase flow
itself—while exposing prospects to the questions, thoughts, ideas, and passions
of existing customers in context. The impact is two-fold: not only can companies
truly operationalize the power of their advocates, but they also will become more
customer-centric in the process.

3. 2
ActivatingCustomerEngagementandAdvocacy:
TheCommunityEffect
I’m going to talk about how you can activate your customers to cultivate
what I call The Community Effect. It goes beyond engaging customers to be your
references to imbuing them with a feeling of being part of something bigger.
At the heart of all this is the immutable fact that your customers now have all
the power. Back in 2000, I read the Cluetrain Manifesto. And one of the things
that stuck with me was this quote:
"Companies that don’t realize their markets are now:
• Networked person-to-person,
• Getting smarter as a result, and
• Deeply joined in conversation,
are missing their best opportunity.
"
I would highly encourage you to read this fourteen-year old book because it
describes what is happening right now. And I believe that the author could help
bring a high level perspective to the way you approach your job. To me, the
gist of the Manifesto is that at the end-of-the-day, it is only the companies that
aren’t afraid to engage with their customers that can reap the full rewards from
that relationship.
Now many of you have great brands behind you, from Cisco to Salesforce.com.
Fine. But we have to remember that those brands are only as good as what
their customers are saying about them online and to each other. I emphasis this
because it’s critical to your success as a reference practitioner that you accept
that reality. And that reality has ramifications for our trade.
For example, one thing I know for sure is that the customer’s journey is
very fundamental to what we’re all doing today. And the explosion of “digital
everything” has disrupted that journey. Put Facebook and Twitter aside for
moment. Those are tools. What I’m talking about is thinking about your
customer’s digital footprint; their whole existence online.
Customerengagementinthedigitalage
Traditionally, we as brand holders by virtue of the fact that we sit in the middle,
think that we control the customer journey, (see Figure 1 on the next page)

4. 3
Figure 1: The customer journey in the digital age.
Of course we don’t. Customers and prospects come in the digital front door—that
would be Google—without even knocking. So when we talk about the Discover
phase at the top of the figure, we’re really talking about your customers’ search.
Most people when they have a question, or a problem, they don’t usually start at
your Website. This is why content and stories are so important. What this means,
is that in reality, your digital “homepage” is Google. Your customer’s discovery
phase is as a consumer doing research, not as a prospect engaging your brand.
From there, prospects enter the valuation stage where they’re looking for others
like them (same demographics, problems etc.) who are talking about you. And
then they go on from there.
What’s important here is that this process has changed dramatically over
the last three to five years. And that’s why your job is so critical. And it’s why
you’re in the catbird seat. Because, like never before, you have an incredible
opportunity to interact with customers throughout their lifecycle and to harness
their engagement. And that includes the chance to engage with them long
before they’re ready to be your reference, which is toward the end of the process.
So, as a highly regarded executive in your customer marketing organization, one
way that you can bring thought leadership is to ensure that you are included
in all the activities that are being woven through your website—one of the first
places potential customers will visit while doing research.
Discover
Advocate
BuyBond
Experience
Why are all my friends
talking about Brand X?
Where can I buy it?
Which version?
What’s the difference
between
Brand X and Brand Y
Here’s the best way
to set up the product.
I love this product
and here’s why!
Evaluate
I wish the product
had more features.
Ads
&
Branding
Promotions
Help
Content
Service
Support
Loyalty
Programs
Word-of-
Mouth
The
Brand
Reference
Customers Potential
Customers
Existing
Customers

5. 4
Understanding your customers’ conversations and how to harness them
If you look at the outside dialogue boxes in Figure 1 above, you’ll see typical
questions that customers ask. “Why are all my friends talking about Brand X?”
That’s where they’re Discovering. When they’re Evaluating, they ask “What’s the
difference between Brand X and Brand Y?” And so on.
So that’s what consumers are asking and talking about and they’re dodging
in and out of various online sites. And they’re doing it on all manner of devices
from mobile phones to iPads to PCs. They’re trying to feel their way to solving
a problem by interacting with people in ways that are very organic and natural
and transparent. This helps them to sort out different solution sets and vendors.
Our primary job as marketers, therefore, is to understand how these
conversations are happening along with how best to harness them at different
stages of the sales process. So that you can move prospects throughout the
cycle and cultivate their loyalty to your company and products.
Socialisn’tenough,yourcustomersandprospectswantyourbrandtojointheconversation
One of the things that I have been fascinated with is the role that social has
played in this new engagement paradigm. One of the conclusions I’ve come
to is that most of us should be thinking of this as an outside-in flow versus an
inside-out flow. What I mean by that is that traditional CRM marketing reached
out from within the enterprise. That mindset doesn’t take into account that
consumers now come from the outside in to find out more.1
When customers and prospects do finally come to you, they want your Website
to be interactive, full of the information they need and easy to use. And it needs
to be integrated with social, and look seamless with it, as well.
Remember that one of the main pathways to your Website will be through social
channels. So you don’t want visitors to be jerked from those networks over to
your site only to discover an old, tattered, web asset that’s not digitally appealing.
1 The statistics in the following three graphs come from primary research conducted by the Incyte Group for Get
Satisfaction in 2012.
Websites, not social networks, are the primary
place consumers go to make purchase decisions
Social Media is merely a door into
a Brand’s Customer Community
58% of consumers have joined internet community
based on a friend’s Facebook post
81% of customers use company website
to research products
58%
81%

6. 5
That would be a jarring experience for them after cruising social networks all
day long.
Next, let’s explore online communities. I make a distinction between them and
forums. Communities are very outcome-oriented, easy to navigate and provide
content on demand in the right way. Forums by contrast are messy and very
hard to find anything.
Now, why would customers want to go to a community? In my opinion, they
have three primary reasons for visiting such sites.
First they want to get information quickly. Consequently, we need to make sure that
the information we provide is digitally appealing. Videos are very helpful in this regard.
Second, your customers want answers/information from consumers like
themselves. They want to know that some of the community content is “unbiased”,
meaning it’s created by real customers. So you need to promote the creation of
such content and communities are an excellent tool to accomplish that.
The third reason that consumers participate in a branded customer community
is to get accurate information. Often they have specific questions and they
want to network with folks who can give them correct answers.
As you can see, customers who spend time with online communities are
hungry for relevant content. But ultimately, we’re here to drive advocacy. And
that means activating passionate customers to talk about us.
I mentioned earlier that a strong brand doesn’t control the customer lifecycle
and that’s true. But it’s also true that your brand is extremely important in
helping to activate the Community Effect.
Customers show a strong preference for „Branded
Customer Communities”
50% of participants for relevant content vetted
by other consumers.
50%
Websites, not social networks, are the primary
place consumers go to make purchase decisions
58% of consumers have joined internet community
based on a friend’s Facebook post
81% of customers use company website
to research products
81%

7. 6
We have research that shows that people will advocate for companies without being
rewarded. People don’t have to be gamified. You don’t have to do these things to get
them to spread the word about you. They’ll do it naturally because they have an affinity
withyourbrand.Theywillhaveincreasedaffinityforyourbrandbecauseyou’vedelivered
a positive customer experience and because you’ve provided a platform—in the form
of a community—where they can share that experience with like-minded people.
That’s the key to creating the Community Effect. You want your customers to share
their knowledge and experience with each other. So the communities you create serve
to aggregate your customers together in one place so they can talk to each other first.
Then, after they’re comfortable advocating and sharing among themselves, they’re
ready to go out into the world and do the same with peers that they don’t know.
TheCommunityEffect
The context for this concept is that we’re in charge of engaging our customers
wherever they are. If we engage them consistently, and compellingly,
especially with each other, in each of the sales stages, then we will certainly
trigger and drive strong advocacy.
A Community facilitates conversations that:
• Create engagement that builds trust.
• Provide mutual value for customers and the company.
• Give your customers a voice that unites your company.
That in turn drives loyalty to our brand. The more active customer conversations
are, the more Google’s on fire, the more content and buzz others who need our
services will come across. All those conversations between individuals—about
your brand, your products and services—they breed trust. So the essence of all
this online activity is to generate inbound trust.
Now, you want to make sure that there’s mutual value being exchanged in your
communities. Our job is to provide valuable products and services backed by a trusted
brand. For their part, customers provide value of their own. They’re sharing ideas to help
others understand, implement and use your products to their best advantage. When
mutual value is being exchanged like this, then your customers are connecting with their
peers as much as they are with your brand. And that’s very, very important.
At this point, I’m usually asked, “So where does community really fit in?” I tell
people to think of it like an umbrella that covers all the stages of the customer
lifecycle. It’s not just a tab on your website that says “Community.” It’s an
always-on conversation that takes place under a big, beautiful digital tent.

8. 7
And I’m really excited about the Community Effect being the new CRM. Because
in the old days we said that “CRM is like a front-office application,” which is so
boring, I don’t want to be in the front office of anything, right?
And now we’re replacing that with a social-centric Website. Your new front
office is your community and prospects and customers can access your site
through different networks.
Anewcustomerexperienceimperative
Engagement is good, but what we really want to do in the marketplace is to differentiate
ourselves based on our customers’ experience. So what does that mean?
Well, it doesn’t mean that customers unwrap your product, have Accenture fly
in to install it, and then you ask them how you did. That’s a company-centric
process and it’s outdated because conversations are taking place outside that
channel. Customers have an experience with you in the digital space, and it gets
amplified. And it happens in real time.
A customer-centric approach
What all of this means is that you have to be listening to your customers’
conversations and interact with them at the same time. This is a customer-
centric approach to the buyer’s experience. In practice, enterprises incorporate
this mindset into their processes as illustrated in Figure 2 below.
Figure 2: Customer-centric processes foster a positive customer experience.
Company-Centric Process
Push
Marketing
Content
Marketing
Company-Centric Process
Seles Influenced
by “Expert” Content
Seles Influenced
by Social Proof
$
One-to-One
Support
Many-toMany
Support

9. 8
I came from a world where company-centric processes were the norm. We did
push-marketing campaigns. We provided “experts” to customers. And these
people were salespeople, consultants, and SE’s.
Then I joined Get Satisfaction and everything was customer centric. I learned
that content marketing is very different from push marketing. Sales are
influenced by social proof. Social proof is nothing more than your customers
talking about an experience they had with your product and company and
saying, “That was awesome, I would buy that again and I recommend that
you do the same.” That’s why it’s important to be active on Twitter, Facebook,
and other social channels. Because they are excellent platforms for those
conversations to take place. Customers may not buy from you through these
channels but they’re likely to be introduced to your product or service there.
Conversationsasacustomerexperiencedriver
Figure 3 below shows the infrastructure necessary to drive your customer
conversations in a positive direction.
Figure 3: Drive customer conversations and you’ll drive a positive customer experience.
On the bottom right, you have some traditional business processes and
systems. You have CRM on the sales side and MAP on the service and support
side. And this whole bucket is the technology ecosystem.
Online Customer Experience
Customer
Acquisition
Content
Marketing
Sales/
eCommerce
Service/
Support
Community
People Content
Customer Conversations
Complements
• Website
• Social Listening
• Advertising/PR
• Word-of-Mouth
Business Processes
• CRM
• MAP
• KM
• BI

10. 9
To the left of that is a list of complementary activities. As a marketer, I want to
know who owns each area. And I’ve got to understand where the listening to our
customers is taking place.
I find that listening is fragmented all over an organization from PR to service
and support. And I want to know where all the listening content is going, and
how I can harness it. There are dozens of tools for listening.
So, moving to the Online Customer Experience box, you can see that it spans
four key areas. All these things directly impact your customers’ experience. And
what reference practitioners are trying to do is to bring people (next box up) and
their content into that customer experience.
But when I think of people, your prospects and customers, I don’t think of them
as stand-alone email addresses. I think of them as people who have content
associated with them. Things like their affinities for your competitors’ products
and services. We need to look at their online communications about those other
products as well as our own. So our job is to get that content and use it to bring
those potential customers as close to our company as possible.
And I think that is where communities play a role. This is a key place where
customer conversations serve as a growth engine for your company.
Keytakeaways
I’d like to leave you with some core concepts to think about as you go about
activating a Community Effect among your advocates.
1. Your customers are talking about you outside of your control. Be open. Set
aside your fears and join them to create a dialog.
2. The conversations your customers have with each other, and with you,
promote trust. And that trust represents the building block for mutually
beneficial business relationships.
3. Look for opportunities to give to your customers and communities. That will
motivate them to reciprocate.
4. Customer advocacy is the natural outcome of speaking truth and
developing trust.

11. Bill Lee, Founder
bill@c4ce.com
www.c4ce.com
+1.214.907.5600
3225 Turtle Creek Blvd,
Suite 1801 Dallas
TX 75219
CONSULTING
We help firms create “rock star” (aka
"marquee, " "champion," "MVP," etc)
customer advocates and influencers
who attract new buyers daily and
dramatically increase growth.
“When it comes to developing
high-impact customer relationships,
all roads lead to Bill Lee. His energy,
passion and excitement for the
subject were evident from the first. His
consulting was superb.
”Jackie Breiter
Vice President, Customer Success &
Flagship Program
CA Technologies
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who run customer advocacy and
engagement programs
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[Bill’s] Summit in the country.
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Chief Marketing Officer
Teradata Applications
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Intel
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