The Internet is a good news bad news invention.  The good news is that is gives companies greater outreach than we’ve ever had before and that’s beneficial either to provide or acquire services and products.  The bad news about the Internet, though, is that it can create a lot of clutter.

To ensure your company and its messages are heard, you need a strong foundation that will allow your company to rise above the clutter.  There are a number of strategies to accomplish this goal but, in my mind, the foundation requires a strong relationship with your customers and prospects.

One approach to construct this foundation is via online communities.  Let’s talk about how.

 

1. Trust

The cornerstone of any strong relationship is trust.  The dictionary defines “trust” as “to have confidence or faith in" or as “the trait of believing in the honesty and reliability of others.”

Trust requires time to build and it comes through various tests of confidence.  It’s doing what you say you’re going to do, in the time and way promised.  Another way to build trust is by helping propel others forward in life while maintaining their confidences and also protecting their back.

All the other building blocks are meaningless without the placement of trust in the relationship foundation.

Trust requires some level of intimate contact with another.  It’s personal.  However, sometimes in order to get to the personal, you have to start with less intimate contact and progress towards the personal.

You can use an online community as the place to nurture prospects until they’re ready to take the step towards personal contact, otherwise known as starting the sales cycle.  Your online community can give prospects insights into how your company operates, to showcase your products and services, and to discuss how customers are using your solutions.

Online communities can also deepen trust with existing customers.  It allows them a convenient way to stay in contact with your company’s activities and to make connections with other customers.  A hallmark of successful collaborative communities is that the members tend to exert control over them, and not the company.  By allowing your members to do so, you show that you trust them and that will help deepen your customers trust in your company.

 

2. Two-way Communication

It’s possible to build trust in another person without ever speaking a word to each other.  However, communication will deepen trust.

Communication involves conveying information from one person to another.  I very specifically wrote “two-way communication” in the sub-head, though, because in building a strong relationship it’s important that communication be just that.  Two-way.  Or even multi-way.  That means listening to customers and prospects discuss their needs and opportunities and, in turn, sharing information about your company, products, and services.

Honesty and seeking the win-win are keys.  Without those elements in communication, you’ll erode trust.

Online communities are all about two-way communication.  It’s their primary strength.  The folks who visit your community are individuals that you’ll want to pay particular attention to because they are demonstrating that they’re passionate enough about your products and services to show up and participate.

You may hear great ideas from your members or gain valuable insight into how they’re actually using your products.

Some community members may complain.  Maybe their negativity has justification and their willingness to express it gives you the opportunity to evaluate their comments, and if warranted, fix their complaints.  Fixing complaints fosters trust.

Additionally, online communities will provide you with a great opportunity to share information about your company and its products and services.

 

3.  Fulfilling needs -- Solutions and services

By listening to your customers and prospects, you’ll unearth their needs and opportunities and be able to see if and how you can provide a solution for them.  To maintain trust, though, you can’t just offer any solution you have available.  You must offer what the customer or prospect needs, or let the prospect go if you can’t effectively help them.

Online communities are great places to gain intell about how your customers are really using your products or other information that will inspire product innovation.  Those innovations can help your company to better fulfill the needs of your prospects and customers, helping to foster more loyalty to your products.

Additionally, an online community will allow you to showcase how companies are using your products and services, helping to stimulate ideas with your members of how to better utilize or extend the functionality of your products to meet their needs.

 

4. Value

My dictionary gives one definition of value as “worth in usefulness or importance to the possessor.”  Value tends to be intangible and varies according to personal definitions.  Folks may not always be able to describe value but they tend to know it when they see it.

For folks who already know your company, your value is likely to be more evident.  Then again, if you perform with a high level efficiency and effectiveness, it might not be.  Additionally, your company’s value is less likely to be obvious to prospects who don’t already know you.

So one of the things you’ll want to communicate to customers and prospects is your value by showing them tangible examples.  Online communities are one avenue to demonstrating your company’s value.

Even better will be if your customers gush about your value on their own initiative.  It’s one thing for you to talk about yourselves – and it’s more valuable if others do.  If you provide quality products and services, and a forum for customers to talk, then that’s just likely to be the thing that will happen.

 

Summary

Gaining and keeping customers requires building strong relationships.  Without a strong foundation, though, your building will eventually crumble.  Conversely, build a strong foundation and you’ll have a corporate situation that is akin to the Roman Coliseum, my opening picture.  A company that stands the test of time.

The four elements I discussed above – trust, two-way communication, fulfilling needs and values – are truisms for building customer relationships in any time.  Online communities are not the only path to construction and indeed should not be.  However, online communities are a dandy approach and in a Web 2.0 world should definitely be incorporated into your tool set for construction.