As the world shrinks to become one global connected mass, it becomes increasingly relevant to use technology to put your business out into that world for everyone to see, collaborate and contribute. While the concept of a community cloud is not new to the IT sector, it has been gaining traction rapidly only in the recent past as businesses realize their potential in interlinking the several branches -customers, employees, and partners-to the company brand.
The new Salesforce community cloud is a significant improvement over its earlier Chatter. It stems from Salesforce’s vision that customer support and experience is central to a brand’s growth and success. The community cloud is a socially integrated layer that provides the much-needed touch-points with the customers, employees, and partners to enhance their experience and cumulatively promotes the growth of a business.
If you’re still debating on whether you need the community cloud, we suggest you take a look at the top five fascinating features of the community cloud.
- It provides a holistic cover for your business:
The core aspects of an organization are the employees, partners, and the customers. Each of these requires a platform to share their expertise or seek help when required. If these were to be integrated into one platform, it becomes a powerful medium to connect the dots across the fields. Employees can upload, share files, and update customer case history, thereby integrating the various aspects of sales and customer support. Customers benefit from the open support system that eliminates the tedious process of a one-on-one support system, enhancing the brand experience. Similarly, partner communities benefit from having a common forum to host partner requirements, track the level of training and certification programs for the partners.
- You can modify to make it unique:
You can customize and personalize the community wrapper to suit your member needs and interest. Every company can create its own community where the member profiles are updated based on what topics are important to them. The community then makes intelligent suggestions about groups or people they can connect with, much like how LinkedIn works. It helps the members stay abreast with what’s new in their current field and also reach out to the experts for related discussions.
The community is easy to build and integrate with third-party data. Visually too, you can tailor the themes to match your brand specifications. With custom templates, you can even customize the login, logout page. You can allow users to register for community pages while controlling the access to data.
- You reward and get rewarded in turn:
If a contributing member is recognized and rewarded with points, he always comes back and creates a chain reaction for other members to follow suit. The result is a vibrant community that is bustling with quality discussions and knowledge transfer. The reward system encourages more members to speak out, share their brand experiences, and help out a fellow member in an open community. Business heads, as well as customers, are in together to gather data. Reviews about a product or how a technical issue got sorted are vital pieces of information that business heads can connect and improve upon.
- It’s fast and works well on the mobile too:
A single-sign–on feature makes life really simple and fast for the community members. They can be a part of multiple communities, yet can switch between them seamlessly with a single login. The single social sign-on feature also lets the members access the community cloud through other social network channels like Google, Facebook, LinkedIn or Twitter.
It’s the age of being connected: anywhere, anytime. The community is mobile-friendly and provides a rich and responsive experience to members even as they access the community through either the App or through a mobile browser.
- Everything’s at your fingertips:
File sync makes it easy for the members to share and collaborate on any file. The latest versions are automatically updated with links to older ones too. One can also link any file from SharePoint using File Connect. Employees can find the latest updated customer sheet, collaborate with a co-worker, and resolve issues. Similarly, partners have access to all records, leads and accounts. They are able to connect with an expert on a field, generate new leads, and update accounts.
Comment on how community cloud can bring changes to your business. To know more about Suyati’s expertise in Salesforce, please send an email to services@suyati.com.