Ben Robinson

ShootProof: Launching a community during a pandemic

Episode 2 of The inSide Scoop is here! In today's episode we talk to Megan Huddleston, Community Manager at ShootProof, about the launch of their community. ShootProof wanted to get their community started as quickly as possible to ensure their photographers had a secure place to come together, especially during these difficult times. So, grab a cup of coffee and give it a listen. For those who prefer to read rather than listen, you’ll find a transcript of our conversation here too.

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Personio launches new Community with inSided

We’re absolutely delighted to announce that Personio—the all-in-one solution for HR management—have launched their new community on the inSided platform. We caught up with Thomas and Selina, Community Managers at Personio to find out how their launch went and what their vision is for the community:

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Zapier launches new community with inSided

We’re absolutely delighted to announce that Zapier have launched their new community on the inSided platform. To celebrate the launch and find out what tips and tricks they have up their sleeve to get the most from their community we caught up with Jesse Parker, Head of Community at Zapier. Here’s how our chat went:   First of all thanks for chatting to us Jesse and congratulations on your new community! Happy?

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Use your community to take events online

As almost all in-person events are cancelled in the wake of the Coronavirus (Covid-19), there has never been a more important time to stay connected. In these difficult times, online engagement is vital to keep people informed and help people stay connected with each other. It can be very comforting to know that while your community stays at a distance, your online community has never been more bustling and eager to interact.

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Integrations:  Create next-level community success

What’s one thing all SaaS companies have in common? You guessed it, they all use a lot of software! Chances are you can’t even count the number of tools your organization uses off the top of your head. We all have those tools that we could do without, or that are only really useful when they are used in conjunction with others. Then there are the software tools that, when integrated, really provide next-level value for your organization, and your customers.

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Easy community customization: Get inspired with these examples

You might have heard that we recently updated our inSpired community?! If you haven’t seen it already, check it out here. We hope you like the new look! Nice, right? Along with the new styling, we’ve also added a whole host of new community homepage customization capabilities—making it easier than ever before to change your homepage, in real time, with no development resources required. 

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3 Customer Success challenges—and how to solve them with software

Are you struggling to know what Customer Success tools and tactics you should be using as your company grows?  Look no further. Here we highlight three of the most prominent challenges Customer Success teams are facing in B2B SaaS today and offer up our take on what your tech stack should look like—and how to get the most from it—as your organization evolves. Recently we’ve been banging on a lot about the Customer Success Maturity Model. We even did a podcast on it with Practical CSM’s Rick Adams that you can listen to here. As a quick recap, it’s a model that allows you to easily pinpoint what stage of growth your SaaS company is at, and what Customer Success software you need at any given stage.

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The role of Customer Success in Product Ideation

In SaaS, your Customer Success and Product teams are working towards the same goals, right? They both want to build a brilliant product, make sure users are getting the most from it and, ultimately, keep customers happy. Ok, that's maybe over simplified, but you get the picture: Great product, satisfied customers, increased retention, growth in revenue.

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How B2B communities grow your bottom line

If you’re finding it tough to convince your organization of the benefits of an online community, or you simply want precise reasons why communities drive business growth, we hear you. And we’ve got you covered. Here we arm you with the undeniable advantages B2B communities offer for your Customer Success and Product teams, the customer experience and above all, your company’s bottom line.

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SaaS Customer Success: How engagement drives retention

You’re a Customer Success leader in a B2B SaaS organisation. You probably know about the importance of customer retention. In case you don’t—here are two pretty standard, and stand out, facts:

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Want to boost Customer Success? Start with self-service.

Did you know that a whopping 73% of people feel that valuing their time is the most important thing companies can do to provide them with good service? If that doesn't make you realise you need to up the ante when it comes to your self-service offering I don't know what will! So we're clear: The need to facilitate effective customer self-service, in B2C and B2B organisations, is a non-negotiable. That said, it's fair to say that it becomes even more critical in B2B SaaS companies, where increasing customer engagement, and retention, are (or should be!) at the forefront of your overall business goals.I know what you are thinking, what has self-service got to do with increasing customer retention? Well, it all comes down to customer success, engagement and the user experience. For a more detailed look at the links between Customer Success, engagement and retention, check out our ultimate guide to Customer Success. In a nutshell, the easier you make it for customers to get the most from your product themselves, (without needing to contact your Customer Support/Success team), the more likely they are not only to succeed, but also to help others along the way. Of course, this is easier said than done and it can't be achieved just any old way. In fact the very thought that facilitating self-service means taking a hands-off approach to Customer Success is totally misguided. Effective self-service requires not only a continuous, thoughtful approach, it also requires engagement from your part. Lost? Let us help you. We've come up with 5 steps that you should be taking in order to really boost your self-service offering and drive all those Customer Success KPIs in the right direction.  1. Utilize your user community’s expertiseIf you don't already have a Customer Success community, get one. Traditionally in B2B SaaS companies, speaking to your customers involved webinars, meet-ups and in-person events. Roundtables were a mainstay when it came to gathering customer information on your product and service. That's where online communities have changed the game.After all, who better to offer advice and respond to queries about your product than the customers who use it everyday? Online communities give your users a transparent platform to interact and share best practices with each other—and you. Your Customer Success team can easily make announcements on the community, making sure users are kept up-to-date with any product changes or new features—decreasing the likelihood of them needing to get in touch with your team directly. In fact at inSided our B2B customer communities see a massive 70% peer-to-peer engagement—up 20% from the industry average of around 50%. This user-generated content is also ideal for hitting Google's organic search criteria—meaning you can easily drive a lot of traffic to your community—download our eBook for more info. What’s more? Allowing customers to vote on the best answers in a community also increases interaction and reduces pressure on your Customer Support teams by allowing users to self-serve and help each other. Online communities foster the feeling that customers are part of an interactive and interesting group that allows them to learn from each other and this in itself drives engagement. B2B software providers with successful communities are even using gamification to award super users customized badges to boost competitiveness and camaraderie among members—here's what that can look like in practice: You will also find that encouraging super users helps to answer pressing customer needs and can inspire others to become ambassadors of your brand. Finally, in our experience not only do we see peer-to-peer engagement skyrocket, actually close to 50% of all customer support questions can be answered easily by peers.Take B2B software company, Infoland's Community for example. Here customers respond to 40% of community questions, which can greatly benefit your support team while improving self-service levels and the overall user experience. In a nutshell, harnessing the power of your user community is a sure-fire way of deflecting support tickets currently hitting your team. 2. Provide an online knowledge base (that’s easily maintained)The ultimate way to make the most of self-service and drive Customer Success efforts for B2B SaaS companies is to gather all the fantastic content created within your online community and use it to fuel your knowledge base. Think of a knowledge base as home for both company-created Customer Success content and the best answers from your online community. Leveraging this combination gives you a powerful engine packed full of top answers and best practices (watch it grow as your community does too) to offer your customers at the most relevant points on their customer journey. When you consider the fact that in B2B organisations resolving complex, technical issues, is a common occurrence it makes sense to do this on a one-to-many platform (rather than with one-to-one support) so that other customers can benefit from answers, no matter where they are on your site.  As an added bonus a combination like this enables users and moderators to work with the community content in a way that favors the most valuable content and demotes the fluff—making knowledge base management a breeze. What's not to love? So, there you have two ways that you can ramp-up your self-service offering—but don't stop there! Download our free eBook here to discover the three other steps you should take and why they are essential for your Customer Success team, and the success of your users.  Download 5 rules for Customer Success in the age of self-service Find out how to boost your Customer Success and improve self-service now!  {{cta('480ad378-2789-408d-9985-8222c5c7d49c')}}

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3 reasons customer communities are vital for Customer Success

Customer engagement is at the heart of Customer Success strategies in B2B Software companies. Why? Not only is it a key indicator for customer retention, increasing engagement is a sure-fire way to get feedback on your product while facilitating the sharing of best practices between your users. That said, driving customer engagement doesn’t just happen overnight, and there are many different ways you can go about it. Of course, you could use groups on social media, plan events for your customers, or send emails/surveys to your users. Then again, these methods can be difficult to arrange, costly, and, in the case of social media, you can run into complications given that you do not own the customer created content. One way to combat these issues, boost your Customer Success efficiently and increase customer health is to engage your users through an online community. Here are 3 reasons why:

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5 ways to get the most from inSided’s integration with Salesforce

Is your Customer Success team struggling to access enough customer data? Do you need new, efficient ways of measuring customer engagement? Are you looking to create trackable, data-driven KPIs? inSided’s integration with Salesforce.com goes a long way to helping you do just that—providing you with a 360 degree view of the customer and giving you access to community data that helps prove its worth to the rest of your business.How? We can associate the individual community member with the Account of the Contact in Salesforce, so you can aggregate data about companies as well as individuals, unlocking a host of valuable customer data. So, let’s take a look at a couple of examples of how our integration with Salesforce.com can be used by your CSM teams.

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What does Customer Engagement really mean?

In a world where both grabbing, and keeping, a customer’s attention is becoming increasingly difficult, companies are constantly on the lookout for the most innovative and interesting ways to increase customer engagement. But what does that really mean? How does an increase in customer engagement improve the customer experience and impact your bottom line? And what ways can you make sure you create an engagement strategy that drives real value for your business?  We've answered these questions, and offered up the top 5 ways to improve customer engagement, on our guest post on G2—check out it out now!

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Want a successful B2B community platform? Follow these steps.

We’ve heard it all before: customer service is changing, customers prefer self-service, drive customer engagement to increase retention, provide quality support or your customers will churn… The list goes on. But it’s precisely how B2B SaaS companies react to these changes and actually tackle the issues that really matters. An online community goes a long way to helping companies overcome these challenges. Whether it be for Customer Success or Customer Support departments, the benefits can be enormous. Not only does a community reduce pressure on your customer support teams through offering users a way to self-serve, it also drives customer engagement as users share best practices and give you valuable insights on your product. That said, we could talk all day about the advantages of starting an online community, (and you can find out more about how they boost engagement, drive retention and should be an integral part of any Customer Success tech stack here), but without careful planning, correct implementation and efficient management, your community may fall flat on its face. With this in mind, and 10 years of experience in the online community game, we have come up with our 10 steps towards a successful customer community. Here are three of them:

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Customization of B2B SaaS products: 4 pros and cons

The ability to customize a product is an important and sought-after request, especially in B2B software companies. As B2B SaaS offerings soar in popularity, so too does the desire for organizations to be able to put their own brand on their software and tailor its usage to effectively suit the needs of the end user. It’s an understandable request, right? Of course, that said, customization itself is a wide-reaching term that can be determined very differently from company to company. For some, it may mean small configurations like changing fonts, for others it might mean having a team of your own developers coding integrations on the front end of a platform.Stamping your own mark on a software product has its benefits, but it’s also vital to know why excessive customization isn’t always the best solution. Put this in the context of customizing your car. You might want new tires or seats, but change the engine and the chassis and you risk ending up with a completely different product that might not drive how you initially thought. So, in regard to B2B software companies, what are the advantages and disadvantages of product customization?Let’s start with the positives. 

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Are all your eggs in one basket? It’s time to diversify your support stack

There's a lot of excitement about new technology in customer service. Every day customer service is gaining more relevance and consequently many organizations are attempting to modify the way they provide support. But tread carefully—if you’re thinking of cutting customer service corners, think again. The cost of poor customer service can be catastrophic. On the flipside, get it right and you’ll reap huge benefits. That’s why many so B2B companies are trying to figure out what comprises their most effective customer service tech stack.

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Boost your product using your online community: 5 must-do’s!

A successful product-community relationship doesn’t just happen on its own—it takes time, effort and commitment. What are the most effective ways to manage this relationship and ensure you are building your product to suit the needs of your customers?

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Customer service: The good, the bad and the ugly

Providing good customer service should be at the heart of your business strategy—not least in B2B companies. In order to deliver impeccable customer service, businesses must learn from previous experiences and understand the ramifications of poor customer service. In this blog post, we’ll take a look at the good, the bad, and the downright ugly cases.

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Pimp your product: Leverage the power of your community

When it comes to building a successful product there are a seemingly endless amount of challenges. What features should be prioritized? How does functionality impact the user experience? What iterations will give the best results? Perhaps most importantly, who is best placed to provide these answers? The truth is, harnessing a customer-centric relationship with your users is the most effective way to get to the bottom of these questions, improve your product and ultimately deliver for the customer. Here’s how to do just that.

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Integration is key: Driving traffic to your community

Generating traffic is at the heart of all online strategies. Yes, you guessed it, the same goes for your customer community.After all, it's this ‘traffic’ that is the people who expand your knowledge base, improve your support, make customers happier and help to grow revenue. To put it bluntly, without traffic your community is useless. A community without traffic is like starting a restaurant that entices nobody to step through the door, let alone have a meal. So, that begs the question: how do you drive relevant traffic to your community?It’s time to integrate!One of the best ways to do this is through integrations. Integrations are absolutely crucial when it comes to driving traffic and engagement to your community. Integrations in key locations will ensure a constant stream of new users and activity. A powerful integration will also present your community’s content in the exact areas where your customers might get stuck—resulting in faster resolutions to customer queries and a slicker user experience. What’s more, integration strategies are not only for new communities. They should be constantly tweaked and updated on existing communities to ensure they stay relevant and keep driving traffic to your site.When you consider that many of the answers to customer queries can be found in your community, it makes sense to maximize the ways you point your users to this content—that’s where integrations come in. Integrations are a range of tools that leverage your existing community content in order to provide the right information to the right user, in the right place. Put simply, integrations are different ways to direct people to content they are looking for—from hyperlinks to widgets to newsletters. Easier said than done? Of course, however at inSided we have come up with a checklist to ensure you are covering all the bases when it comes to integrations and your community.

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test 2018 year in review (plus, what we’re excited about in 2019!) (Clone)

Amazingly, it’s that time of the year again already—time to reflect on what happened in 2018 and what we’re looking forward to for the coming twelve months. At inSided we achieved so much in 2018 and to say we’re excited for what 2019 has to offer would be an understatement... bring it on!

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inSided teams up with Zendesk!

Wouldn’t it be great if there was a quick way to escalate customer issues from your community directly to Zendesk?! Well...drumroll please...the wait is over! Zendesk integration with your inSided community has been one of the most sought-after requests from our customers and we are proud to announce its launch.

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Help! How do I handle too many support tickets?

Let’s be clear, both customer service and customer experience are integral to business success, whether it be in B2B or B2C companies. As customer demands both evolve and increase, so too do the ways they must be handled. Scaling businesses without adequately ramping up customer support not only leads to unsatisfied customers, but can also negatively impact your bottom line. So what are the ways to mitigate this and ensure your customers are getting the support they deserve? 

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What does Customer Engagement really mean? (Clone) Ben

In a world where both grabbing, and keeping, a customer’s attention is becoming increasingly difficult, companies are constantly on the lookout for the most innovative and interesting ways to increase customer engagement. But what does that really mean? How does an increase in customer engagement improve the customer experience and impact your bottom line? And what ways can you make sure you create an engagement strategy that drives real value for your business? Customer engagement means different things to different people, and to different companies, and rightly so. While many definitions of customer engagement focus on interactions, there is no one-size-fits all definition of the term that suits everyone. In fact, the sheer volume of definitions on offer proves just how tricky the term is to pin down. So, what if we take a different stance: let’s not restrict the term to one definition at all. Here’s a look at how it’s defined by some industry leaders:

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