Hello Vanilla Success Community! We're Brandon and Malachi (@borme & @Hopoatem ), and we manage the Awardco Community, a space for clients of our employee recognition software. We're excited to share how our Client Steering Committee has been a game-changer for our community's implementation and launch. We believe our experiences, including our gamification efforts, can offer valuable insights for anyone looking to build a thriving customer-driven community.
The Steering Committee's Role and Internal Collaboration
We understand that a customer-driven community is essential for turning clients into brand advocates. To go beyond simply providing a platform, we established a Steering Committee – a select group of dedicated Awardco clients who play a crucial role in shaping our community's direction.
Here's how our Steering Committee has contributed, along with details on our internal collaboration:
- Defining Community Purpose: Our committee helped us clearly define our mission, ensuring it resonated with our users' needs. This focus has been key to prioritizing our community efforts.
- Shaping Engagement: The committee provided invaluable feedback on our rules of engagement, helping us foster a welcoming and productive environment. This is a critical consideration for any community manager using the Vanilla platform.
- Driving Feature Adoption: Just as you leverage Vanilla's features, our committee helped us understand how our users interacted with our platform, allowing us to optimize the user experience.
- Creating Effective Feedback Loops and Internal Team Synergy: Similar to Vanilla's feedback tools, we leveraged our Steering Committee to gather direct feedback on content and community features. This feedback is shared with our internal teams, including our product team, through our Product Discovery category. This direct channel allows our product team to test new ideas and gather user insights, streamlining our feedback loop and ensuring our platform evolves to meet user needs.
Specific Examples and Impact
A significant success was the committee's role in refining our beta program. Their feedback on navigation, content, and the overall experience was instrumental in our successful launch. We also found that recognizing their contributions with dedicated badges fostered a strong sense of ownership – a tactic that gamification tools within Vanilla can effectively replicate.
Speaking of gamification, we've implemented impactful strategies that have significantly boosted engagement. Our tiered ranking system rewards members for participation with escalating badges and perks. Additionally, badges like the 'Expert Contributor' badge recognize valuable contributions, enhancing knowledge sharing. These gamification features are highly valued by our users and have greatly increased engagement.
Continuing Collaboration and Future Plans
We continue to rely on our Steering Committee for ongoing feedback and guidance. As we explore new features and initiatives, their input is invaluable. We're also committed to using their feedback to refine our advocacy efforts. We firmly believe that empowering our customers with a voice has created a more engaged and valuable community. This principle aligns perfectly with the core values of building successful online communities.
We're eager to hear about your experiences with customer involvement and gamification. How do you leverage user feedback and gamification to enhance your community? Share your thoughts and questions in the comments below! We'd love to connect and are happy to answer any questions you might have!
