Developing B2B Social Communities: Keys to Growth, Innovation, and
Customer Loyalty explains why business-to-business companies need a
robust online community strategy to survive and flourish in today's
changing economy and shows you how to design and execute your company's
strategy successfully.
Seminars, publications, market research, and customer care centers
remain important tools in every B2B firm's toolbox for understanding,
attracting, and serving customers while keeping them loyal. But in a
world of fierce global price competition, increasing transparency of
business practices, and ever-rising complexity, these traditional
customer interaction channels are no longer enough for most B2B
companies. That's why smart organizations--both large and small--are
tapping into online communities to gain a huge competitive advantage:
the ability to get much closer to customers and become more valuable to
them.
Developing B2B Social Communities delves into the generators of
business value in online communities: immediate customer access to
expert information within the company and from other customers;
inexpensive delivery of custom technical help; demonstrations of how
customers can to get the most from their products; and forums where
customers can share tips, air gripes, reveal unmet needs, and suggest
improvements.
Three veteran community managers show you how to harness the knowledge
of the crowd to help shape your company's strategic direction, develop
new products and services, identify trends, sell more, serve customers
more efficiently, and provide better product support. Fleshing out
precepts with real-world examples and case studies, the authors detail
the transformational opportunities--and pitfalls--for creating online
communities.
