Customer Loyalty Powered by Community

Think about a time when you’ve joined an organization for the benefits. It could have been a discount on a product or service or access to exclusive content. How long did that hold your attention before you started to question whether or not the “benefits” were worth the cost of membership every year? In most associations, customer loyalty can be quite the hurdle to overcome. If customer loyalty doesn’t resonate with you, think reasons why members would want to continue to engage. According to the 2019 Membership and Marketing Benchmarking Report conducted by Marketing General Incorporated, 45% of associations who participated in the study do not use online communities to engage their members. And while the report indicates that online communities don’t necessarily lend to renewals, other studies have shown that they have been proven to help make customers more successful. If a member/customer can attribute their success to your online community, you’re creating a ripe environment for people to want to continue to engage with your association and bring others along, creating a virtuous cycle of commitment and loyalty.Here are three ways you can use online community to drive member/customer loyalty.Don’t quiet negative conversationsI’ve seen it happen before. A member posts a message in the online community stating that they find no value in continuing to renew their membership every year and the first thing associations want to do is jump in and remove the post. There are several reasons this is a bad move, the biggest being that it is censoring the voice of your members and it tells them you don’t want to hear what they have to say. Instead of being quick to “quiet the naysayers,” associations should take a moment to understand that sentiment. Reach out to members who are voicing their concerns in the community and find out more information. They may have had a bad experience at a chapter meeting or the benefits that brought them to you are not enough to keep them. Seek to understand the “why” behind a complaint and use it to improve the member experience.Recognize your membersMember recognition can come in all shapes and sizes. Most times in associations, we take a lot of time to recognize members who have served on boards/advisory groups, who run chapters, or who have played a significant part in product development. However, there are members within the online community who are playing the role of superconnector every day. They are answering questions in the discussion forums like it’s their second job. They are providing rich content. They are connecting other community members to the information and resources that are helping to make them more successful. Yet we don’t always take the time out to properly provide acknowledgement for people who are advocating on behalf of our association without asking. While they may not need an awards dinner or special plaque to feel like they are appreciated, member spotlights and ambassador programs are incredible ways to ensure that you are providing recognition for work your members are doing – without hesitation or an ask – to extend the value of engagement with your association.Listen and respondThere is a ton of research out there that tells you that online communities can be hotbeds for informal market research and for understanding customer needs. Here your members will tell you what’s working, what isn’t working, and what they would like to see in the future. This is a perfect opportunity for you to pull together ad-hoc focus groups to get more information about the conversations you’re hearing in the online community. When your members and customers are passionate enough about seeing a change or really excited about something new that you’ve launched, involving them in the conversation about how to move forward is a great opportunity to let them know that you’re listening and that you care about their feedback. But once you’ve gathered them together to siphon all of the good information out of their brains, make sure you go back to them and let them know what you’re doing with that information. Is it being incorporated into future features? Were you just collecting feedback for consideration? Are you developing a new product based on the feedback you heard? Don’t leave them hanging. Let them know they were heard and what you plan to do next – even if that’s nothing right now.ConclusionOnline communities have a responsibility to their members. They also have a responsibility to the associations they serve and can provide an easy way to cultivate member/customer loyalty when done properly. Members/customers want to feel connected to the association they are entrusting with their dues. They want to feel like they are being heard. They want to feel like their association is invested in their success. Whatever your mission as an association is, the online community can help you fulfill it, creating lasting relationships between you and those you serve. And while they may not renew their membership, they will engage in other ways that continue to provide them value because your association met a need through the online community. At the end of the day, isn’t that what we are here for?Does your association use online community to create customer loyalty? Why or why not?