ResourcesBackgrounder
Communispace
Helping customer-focused corporations hardwire the voice of the customer into their businesses using online customer communities
Communispace creates and runs online customer communities, one of the fastest growing marketing strategies for engaging customers and hardwiring the voice of the customer into business.
Founded in 1999, Communispace has nearly doubled its business year over year for the past three years and achieved a 90+ percent client renewal rate due to the value of customer communities to clients' business strategies. In 2007, Communispace signed 60 new clients using both business-to-business and business-to- consumer communities and doubled its staff. In addition, it released new research studies about how customer engagement and influence play out on the Internet.
Communispace has created more than 300 customer communities for over 100 major companies including Charles Schwab, Unilever, Kraft, Hallmark, GlaxoSmithKline, Avon, Hewlett-Packard, PepsiCo, Capital One, Cox Enterprises, and Intercontinental Hotels Group.
Viewed as a strategic marketing asset, a community is a password-protected online site where 300-500 invited customers and/or prospects connect weekly to brainstorm ideas, offer advice to one another and to the sponsoring company, comment on market trends, share experiences, and help the company figure out business issues. Unlike most public customer forums and message boards, these private, branded sites are facilitated by Communispace to keep the conversation fresh and strategically relevant.
Companies use these communities to generate customer and market insights, accelerate new product innovation, and improve marketing effectiveness. The communities are a way to deeply engage with customers in richly-textured conversations that builds trust and loyalty, and drives word-of-mouth.
In a recent study, The Fifth "P" of Marketing: Participation, Size Matters, researchers evaluated participation behavior among 26,539 members of 66 private online communities, built and facilitated by Communispace, and found 86 percent of the people who log on to their communities made contributions compared to only 14 percent who merely observed, or "lurked." When a few hundred members are participating on a regular basis, the quantity and quality of the content is deeper and richer than from large public sites, with a dramatically more rewarding member experience and payoff for the sponsoring company.
In fact, Communispace has found that when companies demonstrate they are not just listening to community members' ideas but acting on them, customer insights, loyalty and willingness to recommend the sponsoring company soar.
In another proprietary study, "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 2,196 members of 20 online communities built and facilitated by Communispace and found 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.
- 63 percent reported they trusted the sponsoring company more than before they had joined the community.
Client corporations have realized significant results from engaging with customers in smaller, more intimate Communispace customer communities. Some examples:
- The development of a new product for a greeting card company, with double digit growth in its first year on the market.
- The introduction of an innovative single-serve snack food product, resulting in $100 million in new revenues in under a year.
- A 260% growth in annual sales from key IT customers largely attributable to their participation and having a voice in the direction of the company.
- The growth of a brand to the #1 market position, driven by the advice of style-leading guys who had a direct voice in creating successful advertising and campaign promotions.
- Warnings about product ideas and campaigns that would likely bomb? Ideas for a high-profile CEO to talk about on a media tour with influential analysts? Urgings to keep products that companies were about to discontinue? Priceless.
Privately-held, Communispace is led by CEO Diane Hessan, author of the best selling book Customer Centered Growth: Five Proven Strategies for Building Competitive Advantage, and former executive at The Forum Corporation, a corporate training firm that specializes in helping companies become customer-focused. In 2005, Fortune Small Business named Hessan one of the 15 "best bosses" in the country.
In 2007, the Massachusetts Technology Leadership Council named Communispace the Social Media Company of the Year.
The company is headquartered in Watertown, Massachusetts and has offices in Atlanta, Austin, Chicago, London, New York San Francisco and San Remo, and currently employs 210 people.