Business objectives are a key aspect to any company. Therefore, it is important to keep in mind that business objectives for a community must be established at a strategic level within the organization. The more aligned your community’s business objectives are to the company’s overall objectives...

Business as we know it is changing, and that is because your customers’ preferences for how they receive support and interact with your brand is evolving. So how are companies adjusting to the evolving needs of their customers? A great solution is a customer-driven support community , which falls...

Looking to expand your knowledge on social and find out how online communities can benefit your organization? If so, we have a great resource for you! The American Marketing Association (AMA) recently worked with Telligent to create a social business blueprint as a source to help guide organizations...

Today, Telligent releases the latest white paper in its thought leadership series, Strategies for Building World Class Communities . Our Senior Vice President of Client Services Cecilia Edwards authored the white paper and just presented a lively and informative webinar on all of her latest research...

Long before there was Google+, the concept of +1 was used to address the topic of extraordinary customer service. In 1993, Ken Blanchard and Sheldon Bowles wrote Raving Fans: A Revolutionary Approach to Customer Service . In Raving Fans , Blanchard and Bowles cover three areas: Deciding what you as a...

Building a world class community requires that you plan for the user’s second visit . Users will come the first time to have a specific information need met. They will come back a second and subsequent time if they can engage in community activities. When companies are launching communities...

If you are new or ‘newish’ to community management, you are undoubtedly sifting through a trough of information and advice to help you establish your role. Been there, done that – and still doing it! As a community manager, like many professions, you will never “master”...

McDonald’s sells french fries, but doesn’t sell onion rings. Why is that? There is an urban legend that states the first beloved sweetheart of Ray Kroc, Founder of McDonald’s Corporation, was killed when a huge burlap sack full of onions fell on her and smothered her. From that day...

Effective moderation can leave a community manager feeling a bit like Goldilocks in search of the perfect bowl of porridge. Too much moderation can lead to foregoing one of the key benefits of your community – crowdsourcing the answers to your customers’ questions. Too much moderation...

Customer service is more than just fixing a part, answering a question, sharing a new shortcut or upgrading a product. It’s about creating a better customer experience, which is why customer service is the cornerstone of customer experience. So, how do you create an exceptional customer experience...

Do employees at your organization spend countless hours researching social networks and social applications? Does the term “social online communities” ring a bell, but you are unsure how it ties into gaining tangible benefits for your organization? Does the concept of social seem daunting...

Working with many clients, I always get asked for advice on guidelines around extending Telligent Evolution’s capabilities. Through these conversations, I’ve compiled and summarized the insights that I commonly provide to our customers and partners. These are relatively high level insights...

Do you spend countless hours researching social? Have you heard about online community, but are unsure if it will be beneficial to your organization? Do you wish that there was one resource out there for the best tips and information on social media? If this sounds like you, then look no further! ...

Over the past eight years, I've traveled to various countries consulting with customers from a range of industries who are working on creating or enhancing their social business strategy – specifically with respect to how they are using social community software to transform communication and...

The first to market, the first one with the answer, or the first one to accomplish a goal are all things that people aspire to be. Finding people who are eager to be the first one to arrive at a meeting, the first one to try someone’s newest food dish, or the first one to express an opinion in...

Believe me, I hate rules. I really do. But, without them your organization, product, society – any function or institution where people are involved – would eventually go off the rails. Unfortunately, dear human, it’s just in our nature. So, we create rules to keep us moving forward...

A Best Practice of World Class Communities is to Encourage Ownership of the Community by Members One of the strategies Telligent encourages for building World Class Communities is to encourage a level of ownership of the community by its members. There are several benefits associated with this: ...

You have incorporated community objectives into your company’s plan, designed the community to foster member ownership and finally launched your very own community – so now what? Well, that’s a great start; however you are not at the finish line yet. After the preliminary push to...

In November, we announced our first Best Practice Toolkit , which focused on customer service. We assembled this toolkit to include relevant customer service resources from analyst reports to customer success stories. However, we know that customer service communities are not the only ones that can...