As a New England award recipient, Hessan is now eligible for consideration for the Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year 2008 national program. Award recipients in several national categories, as well as the overall national Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year award recipient, will be announced at the annual awards gala in Palm Springs, California on November 15, 2008. The awards are the culminating event of the Ernst & Young Strategic Growth Forum, the nation’s most prestigious gathering of high-growth, market-leading companies.
Sponsors
Founded and produced by Ernst & Young LLP, the Entrepreneur Of The Year awards are pleased to have the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation and SAP America as national sponsors.
In New England, local sponsors include Boston Magazine, J. Robert Scott, MARSH, Bowne, Curran & Connors, Scherzer International, UK Trade & Investment, ADP, Accounting Management Solutions, and Boston Private Bank & Trust Company.
About Communispace
Communispace Corporation is the leader in building, managing and facilitating private branded communities that deliver the voice of the customer and enable businesses to generate continuous insights, speed innovation, and drive revenue. Founded in 1999, the company has created more than 300 customer communities for industry leaders such as Kraft, Hewlett-Packard, Charles Schwab, Hallmark, Unilever, GlaxoSmithKline and Hilton Hotels. Headquartered in Watertown, Massachusetts, the company has offices in New York, San Francisco, London, Chicago, Austin, Atlanta, and San Remo, Italy.
About Ernst & Young’s Entrepreneur of the Year
Ernst & Young’s Entrepreneur of the Year is the world’s most prestigious business award for entrepreneurs. The award makes a difference through the unique way it encourages entrepreneurial activity among those with potential and recognizes the contribution of people who inspire others with their vision, leadership and achievement. As the first and only truly global award of its kind, Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year celebrates those who are building and leading successful, growing and dynamic businesses, recognizing them through regional, national and global awards programs in more than 135 cities in 50 countries.
About Ernst & Young
Ernst & Young is a global leader in assurance, tax, transaction and advisory services. Worldwide, our 130,000 people are united by our shared values and an unwavering commitment to quality. We make a difference by helping our people, our clients and our wider communities achieve potential. For more information, please visit http://www.ey.com/.
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For more:
Susan Willson
Greenough Communications
617.275.6529
swillson@greenoughcom.com
Diane Tarr-Smith
Communispace
617.607.8581
dtarrsmith@communispace.com
The Boston Business Journal ranked Boston-based Communispace number thirteen on a list of sixty based on information the BBJ gathered and assessed detailing the company’s performance from 2004 to 2007.
“Communispace was founded nine years ago on the belief that small, exclusive, highly-engaged customer communities are the best way to capture the voice of the customer to drive insight, innovation, and business growth,” said Diane Hessan, CEO of Communispace. “We’re extremely proud of the long-term relationships we’ve built with some of the biggest brands across the globe—in industries ranging from CPG to Hotels to Pharma—because we know that we generate meaningful insights for them year after year.”
“Most of all, we’re proud of the people here at Communispace – they’re experts at what they do and are completely committed to each and every customer,” continued Hessan. “They are the engine that drives our clients’ successes and, as a result, our own. This award is a testament to their hard work.”
“We are very excited to kick off the Pacesetters this year,” said George Donnelly, editor of the Boston Business Journal. “This award acknowledges those private companies that skillfully navigate a competitive national and international marketplace and are growing quickly to be leaders in their field.”
“Pacesetters was created because it’s important to raise the profiles of rapidly-growing companies,” said Boston Business Journal Publisher Michael Olivieri. “This will help give guidance to the business community as a whole as to what makes a company successful and who they should be seeking out as potential partners.”
About BBJ/Pacesetters
The Pacesetters list was determined by survey information gathered and analyzed by the Boston Business Journal from private companies throughout the Greater Boston region. Based on the information provided, 60 companies were selected on their revenue growth between 2004 and 2007, which had to exceed at least $1 million as of 2004.
About Communispace
Communispace Corporation is the leader in building, managing and facilitating private branded communities that deliver the voice of the customer and enable businesses to generate continuous insights, drive faster innovation, and build loyalty. Founded in 1999, the company has created more than 300 customer communities for industry leaders such as Kraft, Hewlett-Packard, Charles Schwab, Hallmark, Unilever, GlaxoSmithKline and Hilton Hotels. Headquartered in Watertown, Massachusetts, the company has offices in New York, San Francisco, London, Chicago, Austin, Atlanta and San Remo, Italy.
For more:
Susan Willson
Greenough Communications
617.275.6529
swillson@greenoughcom.com
Diane Tarr-Smith
Communispace
617.607.8581
dtarrsmith@communispace.com
About Communispace
Communispace Corporation is the leader in building, managing and facilitating private branded communities that deliver the voice of the customer and enable businesses to generate continuous insights, drive faster innovation, and build loyalty. Founded in 1999, the company has created more than 300 customer communities for industry leaders such as Kraft, Hewlett-Packard, Charles Schwab, Hallmark, Unilever, GlaxoSmithKline and Hilton Hotels. Headquartered in Watertown, Massachusetts, the company has offices in New York, San Francisco, London, Chicago, Austin, Atlanta and San Remo, Italy.
For more:
Susan Willson
Greenough Communications
617.275.6529
swillson@greenoughcom.com
Diane Tarr-Smith
Communispace
617.607.8581
dtarrsmith@communispace.com
“Our success last year mirrors an exciting business trend in which leading brands are now devoting significant resources to proactively engaging customers as brand advisors,” said Communispace CEO Diane Hessan. “And, as more companies such as Subaru, HP and Charles Schwab demonstrate that listening is a catalyst for new growth and profitability, we believe the best days for Communispace are yet to come."
Among the 2007 highlights for Communispace were:
Significant Revenue Growth:
Client Retention and Growth:
Employee Base Expansion and Strategic Hires:
Global Expansion:
Expanded Demographic Expertise:
Industry Recognition:
Communispace received the following accolades in 2007:
Research/Reports Published:
Communispace published landmark research reports outlining best practices for building, managing and facilitating private online communities, all of which are available on its website:
About Communispace
Communispace Corporation is the leader in building, managing and facilitating private branded communities that deliver the voice of the customer and enable businesses to generate continuous insights, drive faster innovation, and build loyalty. Founded in 1999, the company has created more than 300 customer communities for industry leaders such as Kraft, Hewlett-Packard, Charles Schwab, Hallmark, Unilever, GlaxoSmithKline and Hilton Hotels. Headquartered in Watertown, Massachusetts, the company has offices in New York, San Francisco, London, Chicago, Austin, Atlanta and San Remo, Italy.
For more:
Susan Willson
Greenough Communications
617.275.6529
swillson@greenoughcom.com
Diane Tarr-Smith
Communispace
617.607.8581
dtarrsmith@communispace.com
Beware “shared” communities, online research panels
The report also warns that tapping into “shared” communities or online research panels is unlikely to provide the value of branded communities where people and companies develop trusted relationships.
“Although it may be more cost-effective on the surface to pay for periodic access to ‘shared’ communities, or to simply tap into large communities of networked panel members, companies will not reap the benefits of meaningful and lasting customer relationships with these models,” say the paper’s authors. “Indeed, one of the risks with these approaches is that members of large networks form a relationship with the panel or community provider, and thus the vendor more than the sponsor company gains the benefits of increased customer advocacy, loyalty and enduring goodwill.”
For a copy of this paper and other Communispace research studies please go to: http://www.communispace.com/research/.
About Communispace
Communispace Corporation is the leader in building, managing and facilitating private branded communities that deliver the voice of the customer and enable businesses to generate continuous insights, drive faster innovation, and build loyalty. Founded in 1999, the company has created more than 275 customer communities for industry leaders such as Kraft, Hewlett-Packard, Charles Schwab, Hallmark, Unilever, GlaxoSmithKline, and Hilton Hotels. Headquartered in Watertown, Massachusetts, the company has offices in New York, San Francisco, London, Chicago, Austin, and Atlanta.
For more:
Janet Swaysland
jswaysland@foghound.com
617-549-9366
Jill Miller
jmiller@communispace.com
617- 607-1421
The Six Social Needs People Seek in Social Networks
The Communispace researchers, building on the work of social scientists, have identified the specific social needs that are met through participating in social networks.
1. Expressing personal identity: online social networks provide people with the ultimate tool for defining and redefining themselves, as evidenced in profile pages on Facebook and MySpace.
2. Status and self-esteem: the need for autonomy, recognition and achievement are essential to our sense of self-worth and are fulfilled in online communities, blogs, and social networks that provide a way to develop and manage a virtual reputation.
3. Giving and getting help: people have a need to both seek and provide help to others. Mutual assistance between strangers is a phenomenon that has been uniquely enabled by the Internet.
4. Affiliation and belonging: online communities are becoming the way people find, create and connect with others “just like me” – people who share similar tastes, sensibilities, orientations or interests.
5. Sense of community: a sense of belonging or affiliation alone is not equivalent to a true sense of community. Achieving a real sense of community requires long-lasting reciprocal relationships and a mutual commitment to the needs of the community as a whole.
Communispace tapped its other research on social networking behavior and found that when companies meet the full range of social needs, they gain trust and deep insights into their consumers and community members – marketing nirvana. And when companies go still further to actively embrace and act on people’s ideas they fulfill a sixth social need:
6. Reassurance of value and self worth. People want to be reassured of their worth and value, and seek confirmation that what they say and do matters to others and has an impact on the world around them. Meeting all 5 + 1 of these social needs generally requires the level of intimacy and facilitation that are the hallmarks of smaller, invitation only online communities.
About Communispace
Communispace Corporation, is the leader in building, managing and facilitating private branded communities that deliver the voice of the customer and enable businesses to generate continuous insights, drive faster innovation, and build loyalty. Founded in 1999, the company has created over 275 communities for major corporations across a broad range of industry sectors. Headquartered in Watertown, Massachusetts, the company has offices in New York, San Francisco, London, Chicago, Austin, and Atlanta.
For more:
Janet Swaysland
jswaysland@foghound.com
617-549-9366
Jill Miller
jmiller@communispace.com
617- 607-1421
10. Pay attention to what members initiate. The best consumer insights often come from discussions and activities started by members. How members talk to each other about how an issue or product “fits” into their lives can be incredibly revealing, as is how members influence one another. The best “best practice” is to shut up and listen.
About Communispace
Communispace Corporation is the leader in building, managing and facilitating private branded communities that deliver the voice of the customer and enable businesses to generate continuous insights, drive faster innovation, and build loyalty. Founded in 1999, the company has created more than 275 customer communities for industry leaders such as Kraft, Hewlett-Packard, Charles Schwab, Hallmark, Unilever, GlaxoSmithKline, and Hilton Hotels. Headquartered in Watertown, Massachusetts, the company has offices in New York, San Francisco, London, Chicago, Austin, and Atlanta.
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MASS TLC PR Contact:
Amy Krigman
Topaz Partners
781.404.2437
Communispace PR Contacts:
Janet Swaysland
Foghound
617.549.9366
jswaysland@foghound.com
Jill Miller
Communispace
617.607.1421
jmiller@communispace.com
The Forrester Groundswell Awards are the first awards to recognize excellence in business uses of social technologies, with entries judged primarily on business effectiveness and value. The winning entry is an online customer community of Generation X-ers that Communispace designed and facilitated for Charles Schwab. Communispace was also a finalist in the “Listening” and “Embracing” categories in collaboration with two of its other clients, Kraft and GlaxoSmithKline Consumer Healthcare.
“Companies are realizing that the power of social networks goes much deeper than advertising platforms,” said Diane Hessan, chief executive officer of Communispace. “Done right, smaller, facilitated social networks like the online communities we’ve built for Schwab generate priceless insights for product and service innovation, brand differentiation, and ‘get-it-right-the-first-time’ marketing. For meaningful business value, marketers need to create a customer experience that inspires gut-level sharing of ideas and emotions, and they need the tools and skills to listen to, engage and analyze what it all means so they can take action.”
The Schwab example illustrates the power of customer communities “done right”. Through a mix of relationship-building and research activities in the “Money and More” community, Schwab learned from Gen X-ers not only about their perceptions of investing and financial services firms, but also their life priorities, their savings goals and important messaging cues.
“We have listened to and learned about Gen X customers much more deeply and productively than ever before,” said Jonathan Craig, Vice President - Younger Investor at Schwab. “Most important, we’ve taken specific action that has strengthened our offerings and our relationship with a young group that’s just sorting out how to manage their finances.”
Schwab got big ‘a-has’ from listening to what’s important to Gen X-ers in the community: Gen-X-ers need financial guidance, but don’t fully trust the motives of investment services firms. Community members shared their concerns and issues which allowed Schwab to hear their unfiltered feedback and adapt their approach accordingly. Gen X-ers also don’t want to hear about retirement. They’re not even close to thinking about it. They want help now with other things like managing their expenses, so they can then move on to saving for the future. And based on customer insights about the entry points for investing and saving, Schwab Bank created its Schwab Bank High Yield Investor Checking ™ account tied to a companion Schwab brokerage account tailored to Gen X-ers.
In addition to creating more relevant and differentiated products and services based on new insights, marketers are also discovering that truly listening deepens customer loyalty. Two stories from Schwab’s “Money and More” community members:
“It was a community in a real sense. It was the first time I was deeply involved with a community, frankly… Take my words. When I decide to invest, I would surely see Schwab first.”
“Being a part of this has certainly made me think a little more about my finances and my financial future. And knowing that Charles Schwab has gone to these lengths to hear the opinions of potential customers has made me think more favorably about the company.”
The Forrester Groundswell Awards are an outgrowth of the book, Groundswell, to be published in 2008 by Harvard Business School Press. Written by Forrester's Josh Bernoff and Charlene Li, Groundswell will focus on effective business strategies in a world transformed by social technologies, and will feature the types of case studies recognized by the Forrester Groundswell Awards. More information about the Forrester Groundswell Awards is available at http://www.forrester.com/groundswell.
About Charles Schwab
The Charles Schwab Corporation (Nasdaq: SCHW) is a leading provider of financial services, with more than 300 offices and 6.9 million client brokerage accounts, 1.2 million corporate retirement plan participants, 200,000 banking accounts, and $1.4 trillion in client assets. Through its operating subsidiaries, the company provides a full range of securities brokerage, banking, money management and financial advisory services to individual investors and independent investment advisors. Its broker-dealer subsidiary, Charles Schwab & Co., Inc. (member SIPC, http://www.sipc.org), and affiliates offer a complete range of investment services and products including an extensive selection of mutual funds; financial planning and investment advice; retirement plan and equity compensation plan services; referrals to independent fee-based investment advisors; and custodial, operational and trading support for independent, fee-based investment advisors through its Schwab Institutional division. Charles Schwab & Co., Inc. and Charles Schwab Bank are separate but affiliated companies and subsidiaries of The Charles Schwab Corporation. Brokerage products offered by Charles Schwab & Co., Inc., are not insured by the FDIC, are not deposits or obligations of Charles Schwab Bank, and are subject to investment risk, including the possible loss of principal invested. Deposit and lending products and services are offered by Charles Schwab Bank, Member FDIC and an Equal Housing Lender.
CyberTrader(R), Inc. (member SIPC, http://www.sipc.org) is an electronic trading technology and brokerage firm providing services to highly active, online traders. More information is available at http://www.schwab.com.
About Communispace
Communispace Corporation, is the leader in building, managing, and facilitating private branded communities that deliver the voice of the customer and enable businesses to generate continuous insights, drive faster innovation, and build loyalty. Founded in 1999, the company has created over 275 communities for major corporations across a broad range of industry sectors. Headquartered in Watertown, Massachusetts, the company has offices in New York, San Francisco, London, Chicago, Austin, and Atlanta.
Communispace, a leader in building and managing online customer communities, doubled its revenues in the first half of 2007, signed 21 new clients, increased its staff 50 percent, and sustained its 90+% renewal rate among its clients. In addition, it released four new research studies about how customer engagement and influence play out on the Internet. To date, the company has run 275 private customer communities for clients across industry sectors, including GlaxoSmithKline, Hewlett-Packard, Kraft, Avon and Charles Schwab.
Communispace CEO Diane Hessan attributes the company’s continued strong growth to two primary factors: the burgeoning interest corporations have in establishing ongoing conversations with key customers, and the eight years of experience that Communispace has in helping companies generate customer insights online. Communispace is one of the few companies in the world to offer full-service community development, technology, management, and reporting capabilities.
“Marketers realize that private online communities are becoming a “must have” for their organizations, but they don’t have the bandwidth to piece together and experiment with all the elements that are needed to make communities successful,” says Hessan. “Because of our full-service capabilities, unique technology, and track record running nearly 275 communities, we make it easy for companies to quickly get communities up and running and to see fast results.”
Growth: Communispace’s first half 2007 revenues increased 108 percent over the same period last year. The Watertown, Mass.-based company hired 50 new employees since January, bringing its employee total to 153.
Clients: 21 new companies signed with Communispace during the first half of 2007, including The TJX Companies, Dunkin’ Brands, Citrix, Mattel, Best Buy, Verizon Wireless, Hasbro, Sprint, Alberto-Culver, Campbell Soup Company, Philips Electronics, and Meredith Corporation.
Client awards: Hewlett-Packard’s PhotoSpace community of digital enthusiasts, run by Communispace, was awarded the HP CIRCLE award for marketing excellence, beating out 443 other entries from 36 countries. Collaboration, innovation, relevance, consistency, learning, and effectiveness were the criteria for winning this prestigious award.
Community highlight: In June, Communispace client GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) Consumer Healthcare introduced alli™, the only FDA-approved weight loss product available without a prescription. During the past two years Communispace has run two communities to help GSK glean rich insights about the target consumer.
New research: During the first half, Communispace’s Research and Innovation team released four new studies, which are available at http://www.communispace.com:
“The Fifth “P” in Marketing: Participation”
“From Research to Relationship: Using Communities to Gain Entrée into Customer Conversations”
“Beyond the ‘Other’ Box: Giving Customers an Independent Voice in Your Community”
“Influence: Exploring Perspectives in Private Customer Communities”
About Communispace
Communispace Corporation, headquartered in Watertown, Massachusetts, is the leader in building, managing and facilitating private branded communities that deliver the voice of the customer and enable businesses to generate continuous insights, drive faster innovation, and build loyalty.
To talk more about these ideas:
Janet Swaysland
Foghound
617.549.9366
jswaysland@foghound.com
Lois Kelly
Foghound
401.333.5464
lkelly@foghound.com
The Mass Technology Leadership Council, Inc. announced the first group of finalists of the Council’s annual Technology Leadership Awards honoring Massachusetts companies and individuals who best exemplify leadership and excellence in business and technology. Unlike most technology awards, The Technology Leadership Awards recognize outstanding achievement in both the development and deployment of information technologies that address critical business issues.
The first group of Finalists for the Awards program, announced June 28, were in the following categories: CEO; CTO; Emerging Executive; and Technology Developer/Vendor companies in Enterprise, Communications, Consumer/ Social Media, Emerging/ Innovation.
INDIVIDUALS:
CEO
Andrew Bernstein, Cymfony
Walter Doyle, uLocate Communications
Doug Levin, Black Duck Software
Keith Parent, Court Square Data Group
Mark Shirman, GlassHouse Technologies
Jeremy Wertheimer, ITA Software
CTO
David Cancel, Compete
John Chapin, Vanu
Kenneth Kuenzel, Covergence
Ron Newbower, CIMIT
Reed Sturtevant, Eons
Emerging Exec
Renat Khasanshyn, Apatar
Keith Kocho, ExtendMedia
Pam Randhawa, Phase Forward
Darren Ross, Cramer
Singu Srinivas, HiWired
VENDORS:
Enterprise
ChoiceStream
elQnetworks
Imaginatik Plc
Open Pages
Supplyscape
Communications
BladeLogic
Equallogic
Integra5
Pyxis Mobile
Reva Systems
Silverlink Communications
Consumer/Social Media
Cymfony
Communispace
Eons
Kaspersky Lab
Lycos
Emerging/Innovation
Avid Technology
Innocentive
LiveData
NeuroLogica
Soliloquy Learning
“The Mass Technology Leadership Council is committed to fostering entrepreneurship and promoting the success of companies that develop and deploy technology across industry sectors and these awards are an important part of this effort,” said Joyce Plotkin, president of the Mass Technology Leadership Council. “These honorees represent the spirit of innovation, the history of accomplishment and the future promise that define the Massachusetts technology community.”
The next group of Finalists will be announced on July 17, 2007 in the following categories: CIO, CXO, Mover and Shaker, and Buyer/ User of the year.
More than 180 submissions were received during the open nomination process. The Council’s Board of Trustees selected the finalists and a separate group of judges will determine the final winners. The winners will be announced at the Fall Awards Gala, October 18, 2007, at the Westin Hotel in downtown Boston. The 2007 Awards Program is sponsored by Citizens Bank, Hosted Solutions, Microsoft, and UK Trade & Investment.
For more information, visit www.masstechleaders.org.
About The Mass Technology Leadership Council, Inc.
The Mass Technology Leadership Council, Inc. is the only association that addresses the critical leadership issues of innovative software and technology-enabled companies. Formed by the combination of Massachusetts Software Council and New England Business and Technology Association, Inc., the organization is dedicated to fostering entrepreneurship and promoting the success of companies that develop and deploy technology across industry sectors. The Mass Technology Leadership Council conducts educational programs, hosts industry events, facilitates networking, sponsors research, advocates in favor of technology policies that promote innovation, entrepreneurship and competition, and recognizes industry-leading companies and people.
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For Information Contact:
Joyce Plotkin
President
617-437-0600, X16
tom@masstlc.org
Amy Krigman
Topaz Partners
781-404-2437
akrigman@topazpartners.com
The less companies try to control the activities in their private online communities - and the easier they make it for customers to interact and initiate dialogue - the more vibrant and valuable the community will be for both the brand and customers, according to new research released today by Communispace.
The research, which analyzed activity in 84 private, branded online communities, suggests that companies’ interests are best served when they enable customer-to-customer dialogue and activities, but don’t try to control or limit them. These customer-initiated conversations yield valuable marketing insights and customer engagement with the brand, according to the study titled “Beyond the ‘Other’ Box: Giving Customers an Independent Voice in Your Community.”
The study found that those communities with a higher percentage of activities initiated by members (vs. the company) had greater overall participation in terms of participation rates, volume of contributions and frequency of activity. Specific findings include:
When customers initiate the conversation they say more and contribute more often over time. On average, members generated nearly half (44.1%) of all activities on the online community sites, with individual communities ranging from 4% to 82% member-initiated content. These “ownership” rates, as evidenced by members initiating and directing many-to-many conversations, were found to be positively correlated with weekly member participation rates, number of weekly contributions per contributor, and the percentage of active weeks a member contributes during their tenure in the community. In other words, a higher percentage of members are visiting more often and saying more in communities that have a good mix of customer voices and topics.
The more people “own” the community, the more they talk with the sponsoring company. People in high-ownership communities engage more with the company sponsoring the community. For example, a financial services community with a 58.9% ownership rate averages 78.7 contributions per client-generated activity, while a comparable community with 38.9% ownership averages only 56.6 contributions per client-generated activity. Even in relatively “high-ownership” communities, the majority of contributions still go to company-sponsored activities, e.g., asking members to take polls, brainstorm ideas, share journals or report on shopping experiences. The mere presence of multiple voices seems to promote overall community participation.
Implications
These study findings suggest some important implications for companies looking to create online consumer communities:
By allowing members to engage with each other in the context of a brand, they will engage more with the brand itself.
Not limiting conversations to topics determined by the sponsoring company allows “outside-the-box” ideas to come to light – ones that might otherwise be overlooked.
The more member-initiated conversations, the more likely that community discussions will stay relevant and engaging without facilitators having to predict what topics will be of interest to members.
Ensuring that members can make their voices heard independent of the sponsor’s agenda and making the dialogue truly reciprocal may also help members feel valued and listened to, and thus promote participation.
For a copy of the study, please go to http://www.communispace.com/3_news/perspectives.asp
About Communispace
Communispace Corporation, headquartered in Watertown, Massachusetts, is a leading social networking firm that specializes in creating online communities used by major corporations to build long-term relationships with customers. The company builds, manages and facilitates private branded communities that deliver the voice of the customer and enable businesses to generate continuous insights, drive faster innovation, and build loyalty. Founded in 1999, Communispace has created more than 250 online customer communities for industry leaders including: Kraft, Hewlett-Packard, Charles Schwab, Hallmark, Unilever, GlaxoSmithKline, Hilton Hotels, General Mills, PepsiCo, Capital One and many more.
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To talk more about these ideas:
Janet Swaysland
Foghound
617.549.9366
jswaysland@foghound.com
Communispace, the leading provider of private online communities, has promoted Julie Wittes Schlack to senior vice president of Innovation and Design.
Schlack has been with Communispace since it was founded in 1999, and has been instrumental in designing the social networking company’s online community offering, used by over 70 leading companies like GlaxoSmithKline, Reebok, Hewlett-Packard, Hallmark and Kraft, to build trusted relationships with customers and prospects that generate deep insights and speed innovation. Some of her most recent work centers on how communities can help pharmaceutical companies design more effective market launches for new drugs as well as uncovering issues critical to the lives of patients and the medical professionals who care for them.
Over the past 18 months Schlack has built an Innovation and Research Group comprised of ethnographers, data mining experts and social scientists whose mission is to uncover new patterns and trends in online community behavior and test new techniques and technologies for engaging customers in private online communities and social networks. Her group's work has been widely published and it has transformed Communispace's ability help companies hardwire the voice of the customer into their businesses.
Recently published research from her group includes “The Fifth ‘P’ of Marketing: Participation,” “From Research to Relationship: Using Communities to Gain Entrée into Customer Conversations,” and “What Companies Gain from Listening: The Effect of Community on Members’ Attitudes and Behaviors to the Sponsoring Company.”
In addition to her promotion, Schlack was recently elected to the prestigious board of directors of WOMMA, the Word-of-Mouth Marketing Association.
Prior to Communispace Schlack was manager of learning design for Omega Performance and Micromentor. She has an Ed. M. in interactive technology from the Harvard Graduate School of Education, and a B.A. in creative writing and psychology from the University of Michigan. She is a resident of Cambridge, Mass.
About Communispace
Communispace Corporation, headquartered in Watertown, Massachusetts, is a leading social networking firm that specializes in creating online communities used by major corporations to build long-term relationships with customers. The company builds, manages and facilitates private branded communities that deliver the voice of the customer and enable businesses to generate continuous insights, drive faster innovation, and build loyalty. Founded in 1999, Communispace has created more than 250 online customer communities for industry leaders including: Kraft, Hewlett-Packard, Charles Schwab, Hallmark, Unilever, GlaxoSmithKline, Hilton Hotels, General Mills, PepsiCo, Capital One and many more.
To talk more about these ideas:
Janet Swaysland
Foghound
617.549.9366
jswaysland@foghound.com
Lois Kelly
Foghound
401.333.5464
lkelly@foghound.com
In this new era of "conversational marketing", the measure for engagement in a community isn’t the number of people logging on. Rather, it’s how actively people participate in the community, according to research just released by Communispace, the leading provider of branded online communities.
"Everybody is talking about communities now, and so the question is no longer ’should we have one?’, but more ’what kind should it be?’ and ’how can we design it to truly engage customers and fulfill our objectives?’" says Communispace President and Chief Executive Officer Diane Hessan.
New Communispace research, which analyzed participation behavior among 26,539 members of 66 private online communities, provides an initial look at member participation in communities.
The study evaluated communities along three participation metrics:
Frequency - how often members contribute
Volume - the number of contributions made by each member
Bystander or "lurker" rate - what percentage of members are simply observing versus actively participating.
Key findings of the research:
The more intimate the community, the more people participate. Results indicate that 86 percent of the people who log on to private, facilitated communities (average community size: 300-500 people) made contributions: they posted comments, initiated dialogues, participated in chats, brainstormed ideas, shared photos and more. Only 14 percent merely logged in and observed, or "lurked." In contrast, on public social networking websites, blogs, and message boards, this ratio is typically reversed, i.e., the vast majority of site visitors do not contribute. In fact, in a typical online forum (e.g., wiki, community, message board or blog), one percent of site visitors contribute and the other 99 percent lurk. (Source: McConnell & Huba, 2007. Citizen Marketers: When People are the Message. Chicago: Kaplan Publishing). This disparity suggests that the more intimate the setting, the more people will participate and get involved in the online community.
"Big public communities may attract more eyeballs, but they may not be the answer for marketers who are looking for deep engagement with customers" says Julie Wittes-Schlack, Communispace vice president of innovation and research.
People get more involved when they know whom they are talking to and why
The study also compared participation levels of branded vs. unbranded communities. While the contribution and lurker rates were fairly consistent, branded sites showed a higher volume of participation.
When potential members were considering whether to participate in an online community, they were 30 percent more likely to log on when the welcome notice disclosed the company sponsoring the community. Branded sites had an initial log in rate of 71 percent, compared with 55 percent for unbranded sites. This suggests that transparency - being upfront about who's behind the online community - is a key factor for companies that want to engage with customers in a community.
Why people participate: social glue, shared passion, having a voice
Communities of parents get the highest involvement: of the 66 communities analyzed, parent communities, as a group, had the highest levels of participation. In general, the research found that the stronger the "social glue" - common interests and passions among members- the greater the participation.
Differences between how men and women participate: based on analysis of single-sex communities, the research found that although members of women’s communities participated more frequently than men, men seemed to have more to say when they did participate: 4.8 weekly contributions for men compared to 4.1 for the women.
Homogeneity triggers participation: the research found that communities based around a particular demographic tended to have higher participation rates. Women and men each participated more in single-sex communities than they did on average in co-ed communities. African-Americans participated at a higher overall level in an all African-American community than they did in other, multi-racial communities. This suggests that people have more in common and are more interactive with a homogeneous group in an online community setting.
Education and household income were not related to online community member participation. Again, the passion around the community’s purpose or its social glue appears to influence participation more than traditional demographics like education and income.
Having a voice, productive leisure: One of the implications from the research is that people may get more involved in private, intimate online communities because they feel like they can have a say and that community members and the sponsoring company hear their views. Another implication is that people may view the time spent as "productive leisure." They see participating as an interesting or fun outlet for communicating with other people who love what they love. It’s a bridge from what they do in real life to their passions.
For more on the "Community Participation Trends and Drivers" study, visit http://www.communispace.com/3_news/perspectives.asp for the forthcoming white paper.
About Communispace
Communispace Corporation, headquartered in Watertown, Massachusetts, is a leading social networking firm that specializes in creating online communities used by major corporations to build long-term relationships with customers. The company builds, manages and facilitates private branded communities that deliver the voice of the customer and enable businesses to generate continuous insights, drive faster innovation, and build loyalty. Founded in 1999, Communispace has created more than 250 online customer communities for industry leaders including: Kraft, Hewlett-Packard, Charles Schwab, Hallmark, Unilever, GlaxoSmithKline, Hilton Hotels, General Mills, PepsiCo, Capital One and many more.
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Janet Swaysland
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Foghound
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lkelly@foghound.com
Communispace, the leader in creating and managing private online customer communities, today announced that sales increased 91 percent in 2006. The company added to its client list 29 major corporations from all sectors including pharmaceutical, technology, and financial services. Existing clients renewed their communities at a 96 percent rate, with nearly half of them expanding their relationship with Communispace by introducing additional online communities to engage both their business and consumer targets. New clients included Dell, Godiva, ConAgra, Novartis, Cox Enterprises, Cadbury-Schweppes, and Capital One.
Communispace's business has nearly doubled year over year for the past three years, reflecting companies' stepped-up commitment to engaging customers in ongoing, meaningful conversations. Online communities are powerful because they give customers a voice in everything from new products and packaging to channel strategy and promotions, and provide marketers with an authentic and continuous way to listen to, and involve customers."
"Our clients know that the 5th 'P' in marketing has become Participation. Online communities provide a pragmatic way for customers to participate and for companies to listen and learn. The result is better, faster insight - and a way to hardwire the voice of the customer into a range of important business decisions," says Diane Hessan, president and chief executive officer of Communispace. "From our experience in creating and managing over 225 private online communities we've also learned that the more intimate and exclusive the community, the more actively and deeply people participate, which in turn provides more meaningful customer insights."
Other 2006 Communispace milestones:
New employees: the company increased its staff by 108 percent, bringing its total number of employees to 110, with the majority based in its Watertown, Mass. headquarters.
Patent award: The United States Patent Office awarded Communispace a patent for its online community software application, U.S. Patent 7,159,178, titled "System for Supporting a Virtual Community." Research and development into community technology continues to be a key priority for the company.
Broader community scope: In 2006 the company expanded the ethnic and geographic scope of its communities, inviting people from around the world into clients' global communities, and creating several communities exclusive to Hispanic members and moderated by Hispanic, Spanish-speaking facilitators.
Expanded innovation team: Communispace expanded its Research and Innovation team to five ethnographers, data mining experts and social scientists whose mission is to uncover new patterns and trends in private online community behavior and test new techniques for engaging community members.
Upgraded software: Communispace rolled out quarterly releases of its community software since its inception and now has launched its most ambitious development project ever, which will result in significant new capabilities by the summer of 2007.
About Communispace
Communispace Corporation (www.communispace.com), headquartered in Watertown, Massachusetts, is a leading marketing technology and services firm that specializes in creating online communities used by major corporations to build relationships with customers that produce continuous insights, foster co-innovation and increase loyalty. Founded in 1999, the company has created more than 225 online customer communities for global corporations including: Kraft, Hewlett-Packard, Charles Schwab, Hallmark, Unilever, GlaxoSmithKline, Avon, Hilton Hotels, General Mills, the Chicago Tribune, PepsiCo, and many more.
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To talk more about these ideas:
Janet Swaysland
Foghound
617.549.9366
jswaysland@foghound.com
Lois Kelly
Foghound
401.333.5464
lkelly@foghound.com
The United States Patent Office has awarded Communispace, the leader in building online customer communities, a patent for its online community software application.
"From working closely with our clients over seven years to build and facilitate more than 225 private, online communities, we’ve learned about the essential ingredients in creating an engaging experience. We have developed specialized social software and process applications that engage customers and generate a level of consumer insight well beyond commodity applications like chats or bulletin boards," explains Brian Harrold, chief product and technology officer at Communispace. "This patent recognizes our unique capabilities based on the sociology of human interaction, an essential element in successful online communities. You can’t simply put up a standard bulletin board and call it an online community."
According to Harrold, highly effective and efficient online communities have four key elements: core collaboration tools, a specialized layer of social and process software, active facilitation, and design and planning. These elements impact the level and type of participation among hundreds of community members, as well as the ease with which customer conversation and contributions are read and analyzed, primary criteria for successful customer communities.
Communispace began developing customized software to advance the functionality of common collaboration tools in 1999. Research and development into innovations in community technology continues to be a key priority for the company.
For more information on Communispace’s patent, U.S. Patent 7,159,178 titled "System for Supporting a Virtual Community," visit the United States Patent and Trademark Office’s Website at http://patft.uspto.gov.
About Communispace
Communispace Corporation (www.communispace.com), headquartered in Watertown, Massachusetts, is a leading marketing technology and services firm that specializes in creating online communities used by major corporations to build relationships with customers that produce continuous insights, foster co-innovation and increase loyalty. Founded in 1999, the company has created more than 225 online customer communities for global corporations including: Kraft, Hewlett-Packard, Charles Schwab, Hallmark, Unilever, GlaxoSmithKline, Avon, Hilton Hotels, General Mills, the Chicago Tribune, PepsiCo, and many more.
To talk more about these ideas:
Janet Swaysland
Foghound
617.549.9366
jswaysland@foghound.com
Lois Kelly
Foghound
401.333.5464
lkelly@foghound.com
CDW Corporation’s (NASDAQ:CDWC) innovative use of online customer communities to listen and collaborate with customers has earned the company a top award from the Information Technology Services Marketing Association (ITSMA).
"While more and more companies that sell to consumers are using online customer communities as part of their marketing strategies, CDW is among the leaders in using them to engage business customers," said ITSMA President and CEO Dave Munn. "CDW’s online communities have allowed the company to gauge the true pulse of its customers over time, while also strengthening its relationships with them. We are extremely pleased to honor CDW for its pioneering approach to putting the customer at the front and center of its business."
CDW, a leading provider of technology products and services to business, government and education, accepted the award at ITSMA’s 2006 Marketing Conference in Cambridge, Mass. Other finalists in the category were Accenture, EMC, Fujitsu and IBM.
"Through our online communities, CDW receives continuous customer feedback from IT decision makers that allows us to include the voice of the customer in our day-to-day business decisions." said Calvin Vass, Senior Manager, Market Research. "We are able to act quickly on what customers are telling us and this allows us to develop stronger relationships."
CDW collaborated with Watertown, Mass.-based Communispace Corp., the market leader in building private online communities, to build and facilitate CDW’s five active online communities.
"CDW truly puts customers at the center of the business – and using online communities helps ensure they deliver on their mission" said Diane Hessan, CEO and president of Communispace. "CDW has taken its work with communities far beyond their initial market research mission to create a much more strategic marketing asset."
About ITSMA
ITSMA is a membership community for marketing executives who market and sell technology-related services and solutions. With nearly 100 corporate members around the globe, ITSMA provides best practice insight, and active leadership community, and hands-on advisory guidance around the unique requirements for marketing technology services and solutions.
About CDW
CDW®, ranked No. 343 on the FORTUNE 500, is a leading provider of technology solutions for business, government and education. CDW is a principal source of technology products and services including top name brands such as Acer, Adobe, Apple, Cisco, HP, IBM, Lenovo, Microsoft, Panasonic, Samsung, Sony, Symantec, Toshiba and ViewSonic. CDW’s direct model offers customers one-on-one relationships with knowledgeable account managers and access to more than 600 on-staff engineers and advanced technology specialists who customize solutions for customers’ complex technology needs. CDW also provides same-day product shipping and post-sales technical support. CDW was founded in 1984 and employs approximately 5,250 coworkers. In 2005, the company generated sales of $6.3 billion. For more information, visit CDW.com.
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For More Information about CDW:
Visit CDW on the Internet at http://www.cdw.com. Contact CDW Investor Relations via the Internet at investorrelations@cdw.com or by telephone at 847-419-6328.
CDW is a registered trademark and CDW@work is a trademark of CDW Corporation. Other company and product names may be trademarks of their respective owners.
]]>Online customer communities are central to creating innovative products and customer experiences, according to best selling business writer Patricia Seybold in her new book "Outside Innovation: How Your Customers Will Co-Design Your Company’s Future." "What I realized in researching this book is that almost all of the two dozen best practice business cases had one thing in common: vibrant online customer communities," she says.
"The only way organizations can break out of the pack is to open up their business to passionate customers and welcome them into every aspect of product, service and customer experience design," says Seybold. Companies that learn to truly listen to and bring customers inside, most effectively through private online communities, will create products and services that better meet the needs of prospective customers, revolutionize business models, and attract fanatically loyal customers, according to Seybold.
The book features several case studies on companies running online communities created and facilitated by market leader Communispace, including Hallmark, Kraft, Charles Schwab, RC2, and Unilever. Examples of what marketers are learning from their communities:
Now that’s funny: community members helped Hallmark understand how baby boomers’ thinking about humor - and aging - had changed. Result: increased sales from updated card lines.
$100 million idea: Kraft’s Nabisco division learned that consumers didn’t want to think about “diet” foods. Instead, the company learned from listening to community members talking to other members, that consumers wanted "treats" and portion control. Kraft’s answer: 100 calorie packs of their favorite cookies and crackers, and a big new business for Kraft.
Active traders love their spreadsheets: Charles Schwab’s online community of 400 stock traders not only actively participated in the surveys and discussions initiated by Communispace facilitators, they launched their own idea- (and spreadsheet-) sharing conversations, helping Schwab marketers identify unmet needs, test pricing and prioritize new services.
"The spotlight on communities in Outside Innovation should get marketers thinking hard about what they’ll do differently in 2007 to involve customers more deeply and authentically," said Communispace President and CEO Diane Hessan. "Patricia Seybold makes it easy to see why private online communities are one of the fastest growing customer involvement strategies, and we’re honored to have shared our experience with her readers."
About Patricia Seybold
Patricia B. Seybold is the author of international bestsellers Customers.com and The Customer Revolution. She is the founder and CEO of the Patricia Seybold Group, a consulting firm that excels in customer-led innovation and customer experience transformation. For more information, visit www.psgroup.com and her blog http://outsideinnovation.blogs.com.
About Communispace Corporation
Communispace Corporation (http://www.communispace.com) is a leading provider of online community software products and solutions. Founded in 1999,the company has created more than 225 online customer communities for global corporations including: Kraft,Hewlett-Packard, Charles Schwab, Hallmark, Unilever, GlaxoSmithKline, Avon, Starwood Hotels, General Mills, the Chicago Tribune, PepsiCo, and many more. Francisco.
New advice for companies looking for proven ways to inject social networking into their marketing programs: build online communities – and make them private, keep them small, and treat members as advisors to the company. These best practices and several others are offered by Communispace based on its experience building and facilitating over 225 online customer communities for global corporations. According to Communispace, online customer communities can help companies deeply connect with their customers and prospects, capture marketing insights, and build brand advocates. But some of the most successful techniques for running communities are counterintuitive for marketers.
“We’ve found that customer advisory panels, chatrooms, blogs and focus groups just skim the surface compared to what marketers can learn from continuously talking with people in their communities,” said Diane Hessan, Communispace CEO. “We’ve also observed that companies’ instincts on how to manage their communities are often too self-serving, relying on research techniques rather than social networking engagement principles. The key is creating an intimate sense of community among people with common interests, and then tapping into the community in multiple ways, through a variety of methodologies, to get into the hearts and minds of customers.”
Communispace’s best practices for managing online customer communities:
1. Invite the right people, keep it private and small. When you find people who have a common interest and put them together in a community (fewer than 400 people), their energy explodes. Screen people to uncover interests, passions, and willingness to participate, and avoid using only simple demographic and geographic criteria. Second, keep the community private. More of the right people are likely to participate in private communities than public communities because they feel more comfortable in an environment where they know what they say will only be seen by other identified community members, the facilitator and company representatives.
2. View members as advisors to the company. Think of community members as valuable advisors to your company, not as a market research panel. When you treat community members as advisors they will go to amazing lengths to help your company -- and for very little compensation. People in one of Communispace’s shoppers communities recently drove over 100 miles to check out and compare competitive stores despite high gas prices. An important note: be sure to let your community advisors know how your company is using their ideas. The more you reciprocate, the more people will help your company.
3. Find the social glue, make it member-centric. The more focused the community is on topics of shared interest and relevance to its members, the more involved they are likely to be. Don’t base a community on just your product or company. Rather, find the commonalities among potential members that are also relevant to your business, and ask people for help in better understanding that particular topic or domain. For example, one pharmaceutical client is exploring the emotions behind a disease and how people make treatment decisions rather than just testing drug ads. A financial services client is exploring not just how people feel about their brand or even just their category, but how and why members have come to consider themselves consumer activists.
4. Work at building the community. Communispace clients are often stunned when they learn that, on average, 68 percent of community members are actively participating within 48 hours of joining the community. One reason for such high participation is this best practice: create community building activities that help people quickly understand what the community is about, make them feel comfortable participating, and allow them the means over time to get to know one another. Some of these community building best practices are creating “rituals” like Tuesday night chats or “random thoughts” weekly polls asking people to post personal profiles, share personal stories relevant to the community’s focus, or upload photos, like pictures of their favorite pet or the inside of their medicine cabinet.
5. Be genuine, encourage candor. The community’s facilitator should set a genuine, open, and candid style and tone for the community. When a new member starts a conversation, make a big deal about how much you value the comment as this will reinforce the behavior. For example, the facilitator may respond, “Hey, great idea. We want to hear everything so please say what you want.” Or the reinforcement can be a spontaneous award. Make a conscious effort to give people permission to be honest and say what they really think.
6. Just plain ask. Companies often over-think how to phrase a question or issue to community members. The best way is to just ask, simply and straightforwardly. One client came up with a dozen ways to try to understand why African Americans didn’t use their products. Communispace advice: just ask African Americans flat out “why?” A retail client was worried about customers’ reactions to a number of store closings. The best advice: post the press release and ask members what they have to say about the closings. Another technique that is consistently successful is to ask members these questions: “What are we missing? Is there something we didn’t ask about that you wanted to share?” Members almost always say something useful.
7. Pay even more attention to what members initiate. While companies regularly poll members and ask them to take brief surveys and answer questions, the best customer insights often come from discussions started by members. How members talk to each other about how an issue or product “fits” into their lives can be incredibly revealing, as is how members influence one another. Within 24 hours of launching an investment community, there were 11 different dialogue topics underway and only four of those had been seeded by the community facilitators. The rest were created by members around issues they care about. Listen more than ask.
8. Don’t squelch the negative. One of the most common mistakes marketers make is to try to squelch conversations about negative customer feedback. “We can’t let them talk about that!” is a common reaction. However, some of the best lessons come from hearing about those things that annoy, disappoint or outrage customers. Encourage members to give the good bad and ugly.
9. Don’t ask too much, too often. As marketers get to know their community, many become overly-enthusiastic about the ability to ask customers all the time, any time, about everything – new product ideas, advertising concepts, competitor moves. Don‘t ask members for too much too often or they will become fatigued.
10. Use the right mix of technologies and methodologies, and keep experimenting. Make sure the community is built on multiple underlying technologies and methodologies so that people aren’t stuck just answering surveys or posting to message boards, and so you can mine the customer insights with the right analytics. Engage customers through a variety of functions: conduct live chats, create visual member profiles, and use icons to classify discussion replies, upload advertisements; ask members to review products, keep diaries. Communispace recommends blending a range of methodologies and modes of expression including ethnographic, storytelling, mystery shopping, role playing, video diaries, and polling. Similarly, keep experimenting with ways to more deeply involve people, create a richer community experience, and analyze what the community’s conversations mean to marketing strategies.
About Communispace Corporation
Communispace Corporation (http://www.communispace.com) is a leading provider
of online community software products and solutions. Founded in 1999,
the company has created more than 225 online customer communities for global corporations including: Kraft, Hewlett-Packard, Charles Schwab, Hallmark, Unilever, GlaxoSmithKline, Avon, Starwood Hotels, General Mills, the Chicago Tribune, PepsiCo, and many more. Francisco.
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For more information:
Janet Swaysland
jswaysland@foghound.com
617-549-9366
Lois Kelly
lkelly@foghound.com
401-333-5464
While many people are hitting the beaches this summer, thousands are glued to their new online customer communities, talking about technology, underwear, newspapers, makeup, home decorating, budget travel and life after 50. Communispace, a leader in developing and running online customer communities, has launched 15 new communities this summer for clients like Hewlett-Packard, Jockey, Avon, Behr Paint, Cendant, the L.A. Times, and Eons. The firm’s business has grown more than 100% in the past year, now having managed more than 225 online communities.
“What’s amazing is how involved the members are in their communities,” says Diane Hessan, CEO of Communispace. “Our research has found that approximately 68 percent of community members get actively involved in their communities within 48 hours of being invited to join. People don’t do this for money; what attracts them is the ability to be insiders for a company and to have a genuine and valued voice in that company’s future.”
According to Hessan, more and more companies are launching online communities to learn from customers who serve as informal company advisors and advocates, doing everything from reviewing competitive products and providing ideas on new products to creating ways to better market to customers and advising on how to deal with potentially negative situations.
Although most of Communispace’s clients are large corporations, some newer innovative companies are also contributing to Communispace’s momentum and the customer communities trend. “We are proud to have established the first community specifically for adults 50+. The passionate responses and good advice we have received from our participants have been invaluable to Eons in shaping our new company,” says Jeff Taylor, former CEO of Monster.com and now CEO of Eons, a media company for people over 50 which is officially launching today.
About Communispace
Communispace Corporation, headquartered in Watertown, Massachusetts, is a leading marketing technology and services firm that specializes in creating online communities used by major corporations to build long-term relationships with their customers. A pioneer in the exploding field of customer engagement (e.g., blogs, word-of-mouth, communities, consumer-generated media), Communispace builds and runs private, branded customer communities that generate high-ROI insights, innovation and customer loyalty. Founded in 1999, the company has created more than 225 online customer communities for global corporations including: Kraft, American Express, Avon, Hewlett-Packard, Charles Schwab, Hallmark, Unilever, Reebok, General Motors, State Farm, Starwood Hotels, General Mills, The Chicago Tribune, PepsiCo, and many more. Recently, Communispace has won a number of awards including the Stevie Award for Best Woman-Owned Company of the Year and the CRM WizKid Award for innovation by Beagle Research (2006). Gartner named Communispace a “Cool Vendor” in a March 2006 report spotlighting companies with innovative approaches for understanding and deepening relationships with customers. www.communispace.com
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For more information:
Janet Swaysland
jswaysland@foghound.com
617-549-9366
Lois Kelly
lkelly@foghound.com
401-333-5464
Communispace – the leading creator of private online customer communities – today announced that Clare Robinson has joined the company as Senior Vice President of Client Services. The company is adding executive bench strength in response to over 100% growth in the last year.
"Companies are quickly realizing that if they listen to and involve customers in their business, they are leveraging their best marketing asset – their customers – for new ideas and to drive growth,” said Diane Hessan, president and CEO of Communispace. “We’re seeing it happening across all business sectors. In this new position, Clare will help us scale and masterfully manage our expanding roster of Fortune 500 client relationships."
Robinson brings both innovative marketing technology and management consulting experience to Communispace. Most recently an Executive Vice President and Relationship Leader at Digitas, a leading interactive marketing services company, she was a member of the executive team that grew the company from a 30-person direct mail shop to an interactive marketing leader with $250 million in revenues and 1,800 employees. At Digitas, Clare developed acquisition and relationship management strategies in the consumer and business-to-business markets, leading a number of key accounts and helping to build the capabilities to deliver integrated, multi-channel marketing solutions. Previously, Robinson was a consultant with Mercer Management Consulting (then known as Temple, Barker and Sloane) where she specialized in marketing strategy, organizational design and business model development for the financial services, telecommunications and transportation industries. Robinson graduated with a political science/economics degree from Williams College and has been a guest lecturer at Harvard Business School and Boston University.
“Joining such an innovative company, especially at this time in Communispace’s growth, is an extraordinary opportunity. I look forward to helping the company evolve their offering to meet surging marketplace demand and continue to deliver actionable results for clients,” said Clare Robinson, new Senior Vice President of Client Services, Communispace.
About Communispace
Communispace Corporation, headquartered in Watertown, Massachusetts, is a leading marketing technology and services firm that specializes in creating online communities used by major corporations to build long-term relationships with their customers. A pioneer in the exploding field of customer engagement (e.g., blogs, word-of-mouth, communities, consumer-generated media), Communispace builds and runs private, branded customer communities that generate high-ROI insights, innovation and customer loyalty. Founded in 1999, the company has created more than 225 online customer communities for global corporations including: Kraft, American Express, Avon, Hewlett-Packard, Charles Schwab, Hallmark, Unilever, Reebok, General Motors, State Farm, Starwood Hotels, General Mills, The Chicago Tribune, PepsiCo, and many more. Recently, Communispace has won a number of awards including the Stevie Award for Best Woman-Owned Company of the Year and the CRM WizKid Award for innovation by Beagle Research (2006). Gartner named Communispace a “Cool Vendor” in a March 2006 report spotlighting companies with innovative approaches for understanding and deepening relationships with customers. www.communispace.com
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For more information:
Janet Swaysland
jswaysland@foghound.com
617-549-9366
Lois Kelly
lkelly@foghound.com
401-333-5464
Companies searching for the holy grail of customer engagement — the emotional bonding, trust and word-of-mouth that result in genuine customer loyalty (as opposed to “satisfaction”) and that drive sales growth –– will find new answers in a research study of 20 different private, online customer communities conducted by market leader Communispace. Study highlights were released today, and include findings that 82 percent of community members said they were more likely to recommend the client company’s products since joining its community; 76 percent felt more positively about the company; and 52 percent reported that they were more inclined to purchase products from the sponsoring company.
In the study, titled “What Companies Gain from Listening: The Effect of Community Membership on Members’ Attitudes and Behavior in Relation to the Sponsoring Company,” researchers analyzed surveys among 2196 members of 20 online communities built and facilitated by Communispace for a wide range of brand-name companies: 13 business-to-consumer (B2C) communities in the consumer packaged goods, pharmaceutical, photography products and services, hospitality, home appliance, financial services, fast food, and Internet service provider industries; and seven business-to-business (B2B) communities in the technology, insurance, health care, publishing, and financial services industries.
“Our clients have always gained enormous consumer insights, product and service ideas, and marketing and positioning feedback from customers in their online communities. Now we’re demonstrating how engaging customers in these communities builds deep relationships, fosters loyalty and enhances word of mouth,” explained Diane Hessan, CEO of Communispace. “This research shows that when companies really listen to customers and make it easy for them to have a say, customers become incredibly connected with the sponsoring company; they trust the company more, provide more thoughtful and detailed feedback, and recommend the company’s products to more people. Communities are becoming the core of successful customer engagement.” Unlike public communities such as MySpace or blogs, private customer communities are password-protected sites where up to 400 invited customers and/or prospects spend an average of 30 minutes a week over a period of months brainstorming ideas, offering advice to one another and to the sponsoring company, sharing experiences, commenting on market trends and helping the company figure out business issues. Online customer communities are emerging as a 24/7 strategic marketing asset that ensures that customers are at the center of marketing and communications planning, innovation and research.
Other highlights of the research study:
76 percent of community members surveyed indicated they felt generally more positively about the company since joining the community;
As specific drivers of overall positive feelings, 75 percent of the community members surveyed said that they felt more respect for the company sponsoring the community; 63 percent said that membership had increased their trust of the company;
91 percent felt that their community enabled them to give candid feedback and suggestions to the company; 89 percent said they felt the company is truly concerned with what its customers have to say;
Based on the research of loyalty guru, Fred Reichheld (“The Ultimate Question: Driving Good Profits and True Growth,” 2006), Communispace has begun routinely asking the “ultimate question”—how likely customers are to recommend a company—of prospective members before they join communities, and then asking it again after they’ve been in the community for at least three months. Initial analyses indicated that 82 percent of members asked said they were more likely to recommend the company’s product than before joining the community;
While word of mouth marketing was not a primary objective of most communities at the time of the survey, 59 percent of members reported talking positively with friends and family about their community experience and the sponsoring company.
Download the accompanying researchPDF
More details on the study in a forthcoming white paper will be available by contacting Communispace at http://www.communispace.com/perspectives.asp.
About Communispace
Communispace Corporation, headquartered in Watertown, Massachusetts, is a leading marketing technology and services firm that specializes in creating online communities used by major corporations to build long-term relationships with their customers. A pioneer in the exploding field of customer engagement (e.g., blogs, word-of-mouth, communities, consumer-generated media), Communispace builds and runs private, branded customer communities that generate high-ROI insights, innovation and customer loyalty. Founded in 1999, the company has created more than 200 online customer communities for global corporations including: Kraft, American Express, Avon, Hewlett-Packard, Charles Schwab, Hallmark, Unilever, Reebok, General Motors, State Farm, Starwood Hotels, General Mills, The Chicago Tribune, PepsiCo, and many more. Recently, Communispace has won a number of awards including the Stevie Award for Best Woman-Owned Company of the Year and the CRM WizKid Award for innovation by Beagle Research (2006). Gartner named Communispace a “Cool Vendor” in a March 2006 report spotlighting companies with innovative approaches for understanding and deepening relationships with customers. www.communispace.com
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For more information:
Janet Swaysland
jswaysland@foghound.com
617-549-9366
Lois Kelly
lkelly@foghound.com
401-333-5464
Communispace, which creates and runs online customer communities for major corporations, today announced that it has been awarded a 2006 WizKids™ innovation award by the Beagle Research Group.
The annual award is given to emerging companies that demonstrate new and innovative solutions to business problems in customer relationship management. Other winners are BlueRoads, Rearden Commerce, Knowlagent, Five9, ShareMethods, RightNow Technologies, Eloqua Corporation, and Salesforce.com.
Communispace creates and manages private online customer communities. Clients include Charles Schwab, Unilever, Kraft, The Chicago Tribune, GlaxoSmithKline, and Starwood Hotels.
In these facilitated, by-invitation only communities companies engage their customers in on-going, two-way conversations -- sharing ideas, discussing trends, seeking advice, and continually incorporating that advice into business strategy. Communispace’s clients view their communities as a robust marketing asset rather than a one-time transactional activity.
For the WizKid award entry, Communispace showed how its client Charles Schwab, one of the country’s largest financial services firms, has gained valuable customer insights, market outlook perspectives, and new product direction from its community of 400 high net worth clients.
For example, before going out on a recent market tour, Chairman Charles Schwab asked community members for their views on market trends and investment strategies.
“Clients were literally writing essays to him about what they liked and what needed improvement,” says Jim Hawn, a vice president in Schwab’s retail brokerage business.
“Customers are dying to be more involved with companies,” says Diane Hessan, Communispace CEO. “When companies treat customers like insiders, like Schwab does using its online community, customers not only provide advice and direction, they become loyal advocates for the company. That’s why some business experts believe that communities are the fastest way to build and get to the top of the customer loyalty ladder.”
For more information about the WizKids award or a copy of the Charles Schwab case study, go to www.beagleresearch.com.
About Communispace
Founded in 1999, Communispace (www.communispace.com) has created more than 200 online customer communities for 60 companies in industries ranging from travel and beauty products to food and financial services. Approximately 94% of Communispace’s clients renew their contracts because of the strategic value they get from their customer communities. Communispace is headquartered in Watertown, Mass., with offices in Atlanta, Chicago, New York and San Francisco.
For more information:
Janet Swaysland, jswaysland@foghound.com, 617-549-9366
Lois Kelly, lkelly@foghound.com, 401-333-5464
Communispace, which creates and runs private online customer communities for major corporations, today announced that it added 17 new clients in 2005, including Charles Schwab, GlaxoSmithKline and PepsiCo, bringing the number of customer communities it has developed to 200.
Communispace also reported that 94 percent of its existing clients renewed their community contracts for 2006. The company’s clients include Hallmark, Chicago Tribune, Unilever, Kraft, Starwood Hotels, State Farm, Reebok, and EarthLink.
“With increasing customer distrust and declining advertising effectiveness, companies are realizing that engaging customers is absolutely critical to today’s marketing success,” explains Diane Hessan, CEO of Communispace. “Engagement is not about using more interesting marketing techniques; it is about being more interested in and involved with your customers.
“We and our clients have found that if you treat customers like insiders – asking for their advice, listening to them, and sharing ideas on an ongoing basis – those customers will engage with your company like never before, giving you insights about new products, market trends, and what will and won’t fly in the market. Having a customer community is one surprisingly easy way to genuinely engage with clients, and that’s why our business is growing so much.”
Communispace increased its staff by 91% percent in the past year, bringing its total number of employees to 65, with the majority based in its Watertown, Mass. headquarters. The privately held company’s 2005 revenues increase 71% over 2004; this is the third year in a row that Communispace’s revenues have increased more than 70%.
About Communispace
Founded in 1999, Communispace (www.communispace.com) has created more than 200 online customer communities for customer-focused companies in industries ranging from travel and beauty products to food and financial services. For a detailed Communispace client list visit http://www.communispace.com/clients.asp. CEO Diane Hessan, a recognized expert in customer-centered growth strategies, was named in 2005 one of the 15 “Best Bosses” in the country by Fortune Small Business. Communispace is headquartered in Watertown, Mass., with offices in Atlanta, Chicago, New York and San Francisco.
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For more information:
Janet Swaysland, jswaysland@foghound.com, 617-549-9366
Lois Kelly, lkelly@foghound.com, 401-333-5464
FSB: Fortune Small Business announced today its 2005 list of Best Bosses, 15 entrepreneurs in various industries—from homebuilders to junk removal and robot construction—who are particularly well-rounded, with the vision, creativity, focus, and great people skills to get the best out of their employees. To compile the list of Best Bosses, FSB collaborated with Winning Workplaces, a non-profit organization that helps small businesses create successful workplace practices. The list appears in the October issue of FSB, and at www.FSB.com.
Managing the Gen Y workers flooding the job market is a key part of the success of this year’s Best Bosses. “Young, fast-growing companies in quickly changing industries hire more young workers than the average firm and place a premium on grabbing the most creative ones,” says writer Ellyn Spragins. And, managers who don’t effectively address the needs of this generation will struggle, says one workplace consultant. The result? “The Best Bosses have crafted business practices to satisfy the demands of twenty-somethings, treating them more like consumers than employees,” says Spragins. “In return, workers put in high-energy performances and rarely entertain other job offers—all of which translates into lower turnover and faster growth.”
The word “fun,” often with an exclamation point, is featured in more than half of these businesses mission statements, mottos, or self-descriptions. Owners indulge their employees in scavenger hunts, dodgeball tournaments, free beer on Fridays, go-cart racing, pumpkin-carving contests, and trips. Their offices overflow with waterfalls, koi ponds, and climbing walls, as well as the standard day-care centers and gyms. But, Best Bosses go beyond simply dispensing a laundry list of benefits; rather, they make sure their entire workplace culture fits the needs of their employees.
This year’s Best Bosses had to sweat a little harder to prove themselves winners. FSB and its partner, Winning Workplaces raised the bar by expanding the judging criteria. To cull the finalists from a group of 100 nominees, FSB, Winning Workplaces and a panel of judges evaluated employee satisfaction, investment in workers, benefits such as medical insurance and retirement plans, as well as other measures. The business owners were subjected to a 360-degree performance review by talking with customers, financial and legal advisors, board members, investors, and randomly selected employees about the nominee’s management style and philosophy. “What’s most heartening is to see leaders from a wide range of industries and from across the country all find ways to create workplaces where employees are gratified and rewarded, and the businesses and the employees both benefit,” says Kenneth Lehman, chairman of Winning Workplaces.
This year’s Best Bosses are:
Greg Wittstock (Aquascape Designs, Batavia, Ill.) At this maker of pond kits and supplies, workers vet each other’s ideas.
Larry Weinberg/Josh Baker (BOWA Builders, McLean, Va.) This homebuilder aggressively recruits from Latin American communities.
Diane Hessan (Communispace Corp., Watertown, Mass.) Workers at this supplier of private online communities and customer surveys can gripe online, anonym