Create online support communities for your customers with social media software

Online communities can be used for efficient and cost-effective customer support. It might sound almost too good to be true, but building a community of dedicated and enthusiastic customers can greatly reduce support costs.

How, you ask? All you need to do is develop a trusted online customer support system, including a comprehensive database of information, user forums and a peer-to-peer support network. People like to help each other, and this type of online community lets them do just that - with a measurable return on investment for you.

Online support communities increase customer loyalty and benefit your business

Customer care and support is an important part of any business: happy customers mean good reviews and positive word-of-mouth. Social media software has the capacity to enhance customer service by increasing its efficiency through the use of an online community. The added bonus is that when users help each other it reduces your costs by cutting down on call-centre workload.

An effective online support community improves the customer experience on a number of levels. By bringing together enthusiastic users in an engaged online community, you enable peer-to-peer advice and knowledge sharing. This immediately puts customers more at ease as they interact with people like them and connect over shared experiences. It also speeds up the process of support by allowing users access to an entire database of solutions built up by your members.

An efficient and friendly online support community speeds up the support process and reduces costs, while also increasing brand loyalty and fuelling consumer advocacy by ensuring customer satisfaction.

Support community case studies

Dell Customer Support Dell created a highly successful online support community where users can help each other with tech support and engage with Dell's experts.