It has been a busy few weeks as we wind down our annual spring user groups that started off in London back in February and finished in Louisville yesterday. Every year I come out of these meetings more inspired and encouraged than the previous year. Over the last several years I’ve had the privilege to watch as our customer community evolved from small subset of early-adopters to a vibrant and highly diverse group covering a wide range of company types and industries. The community is passionate and intensely involved in driving product direction and even influencing corporate strategy. Even more inspiring are the relationships that have developed between not only employees and customers but between the customers themselves. Words like “vendor” and “client” have been replaced by “partner” and “friend”.

So you might ask – how did you build such a strong and vibrant community? It is pretty simple. We partnered with our users to create a forum dedicated to listening. The user groups started small with only a few users in a few cities, but the message was clear for us – better listening equates to better products. Today we are in nearly constant contact with customers from the spring user groups to the fall global conference and many less formal discussions in between. I was sitting at dinner with a customer last night and he was complaining about another vendor (this is always fun when it’s not you!), because his sales rep came in and was attempting to tell him how to run his business and manage his policies. However, this person had never actually performed this function or worked in his industry. In a similar manner, building technology or information products is very much the same – you can’t build great products without involvement of great customers who live their profession and unique industry every day.

Of course it is easy to conduct these meetings and tell users that you are listening, but what happens after is equally important and takes companywide commitment. I often get asked, “What happens to all our feedback and ideas after this meeting? Where does it go? How does it get prioritized?” The answer is pretty straightforward. We compile it and look for trends across the user base. All feedback channels point to a central location and get prioritized, in most cases, by intensity of interest and customer business impact. The major ideas and new feature enhancements are prototyped and re-circulated back to the user community for vetting and further discussion. By the time a major feature makes it to market a majority of the community is well aware of the functionality and has had their individual chance to influence the newest release.

In summary for those reading this that are new to Cortera and our products and interested in our community philosophy or those simply looking to create your own user community for your respective products, here are a few tips:

• Listen: A user group is a meeting or a multi-day meeting dedicated to listening. Not pitching or selling. The customer has already purchased the product, now is the time for learning from both the vendor and the user. It is very easy to get caught up in the latest and greatest product features, but without listening you miss the simple enhancements and features that can have a huge impact on the customer user experience. Every meeting I come away with list of what I would call simple enhancements that can easily be rolled into the next release. Over time these “simple” enhancements add up to an enormous amount of goodwill. The best ideas come from the people who use the product day in and day out.

• Gain companywide commitment: It does cost money and time to start a user group community, so it is essential to have top down support. That said, sending only a customer service representative or even a product manager is not enough. We’ve had success because of the involvement across the board from developers, senior management, sales, marketing and professional services. The entire organization needs to hear from the customer. When it comes to our annual global conference we involve nearly department to ensure maximum exposure and interaction with our customers.

• Facilitate the feedback loop: This seems like a simple concept, but you’d be surprised how often we get the question, “Now that I am a customer, how do I get my enhancements and my ideas to the right people?” For us, it has been by asking each customer. Again it sounds simple, but without asking, a customer may be too polite or timid to speak up to tell you. So we ask, and ask often. From professional services and support team calls to user group meetings, we are constantly asking “what else?”, “what do you like?”, “what bugs you the most?” Of course once you have the feedback flowing, you need to ensure that you communicate when these new features and enhancements suggested by the community are included in the product. For us, we close the loop in a variety of ways: our regional user group meetings, webinars conducted by our product management team, release notes, our customer portal, professional services engagements and our annual global conference that is packed with training sessions. There is no such thing as over communicating.

• Be humble: Simply put, the product is never perfect and never done. Accepting criticism and being flexible (and nimble enough) to change shows your commitment to the customer. A defensive stance in a user group or community meeting will undermine the entire community effort. With each new product we develop our customers are actively solicited for feedback and product direction.

• Support your customer evangelists or heros: Every company has “go-to” customers that know your product probably better than you do in some cases. The sooner your embrace this group and empower them the better. This can take time, but get them involved in speaking opportunities, customer training sessions, expert panels and even public relations activities. Often times the benefit for your company is just as strong as the benefit for the customer in terms of career accolades and industry recognition.

• Community is 24/7/365: Provide a mechanism for customers to reach other customers. Whether this is an online community or simply sending contact spreadsheets out, the goal is the same – year round communication. Last fall I watched as two customers in Europe that had met only once at our European Regional User Group in London exchanged emails. I was cc’d in the exchange, but one customer had a question and went right to another for advice. In a matter of minutes several emails were exchanged, and expert advice was passed on from the best source, an actual user.

When all of these tips are working in sync you’ll know because references will occur without your involvement, prospects will approach the sales organization after you’ve been recommended by a peer and the most impactful enhancements will rise to the top of the list.

Let us know what you think.