The business benefits of hosting or connecting to online communities are becoming more and more apparent. The analyst firm Gartner confirmed it a few days ago with the prediction that by 2010, more than 60 percent of Fortune 1,000 companies with a Web site will connect to or host some form of online community that can be utilized for customer relationship purposes.
They see several causes for this: from upcoming "Generation Virtual", accustomed to communication via social applications, to gaining valuable information about their customer base. “Data can be collected and used for product development, customer feedback, loyalty management, customer segmentation, campaign targeting, and individual or group customer satisfaction management. This wealth of data can be used for marketing, in particular, as well as an entire customer-focused organization,” said Adam Sarner, principal research analyst at Gartner.
But the road to there will not be simple: Gartner estimates that "more than 50 percent of companies that have established an online community will fail to establish mutual purpose, ultimately eroding customer and company values."
We agree that a clearly defined community purpose, which specifies the community added value for the organization and for the community members, is vital - that is why we have placed it at the core of our community building process.
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