Community managers are finally rising to the ranks of being a respected and understood profession, and even a necessary part of every business. Community managers are basically the backbone of customer service in today’s hyper-connected marketplace.
Today more than ever before, companies are relying on individual customer engagement to cement brand loyalty and leverage word-of-mouth marketing. The community manager is tasked with keeping the various resources of the organization in sync, ensuring customer needs are met, concerns are addressed, and product and service feedback is brought to the attention of senior leadership.
The value of community managers to businesses can be explained in their five core responsibilities.
1. Improve Public Perception
Community mangers are in the unique position of having customers as their direct audience, and can immediately increase personal interaction with customers, giving businesses an actual face and name–something that is particularly valuable in a world of computer screens and automated messages. By doing this, they can directly improve the public perception of an otherwise faceless company. This is particularly helpful during a time of crisis.
2. Enhance Customer Service & Support
Enhanced customer service and support is one of the best aspects of hiring a community manager, because they are able to directly help customers find appropriate support resources. Community managers can easily identify dissatisfied customers–because they have their “finger on the pulse” of customer concerns– and assist in addressing their needs.
3. Drive Awareness
As the brand’s biggest cheerleader, the community manager can channel the best aspects of businesses, and promote products at events and engage on social networking platforms to help drive awareness. They are constantly on the ground and in the trenches, spreading important information about your business to a global audience.
4. Collect Analysis & Feedback
By speaking directly to customers, the community manager can assist sales and marketing teams by identify product evangelists, discover industry trends, act as marketing liaisons to customers, and guide marketing on appropriate massaging. Furthermore, they can assist in gathering product requirements from customers, and identify competitor activity through directly communicating with your audience. Community managers understand the cycles of products, and can assist business units when they want to announce a product or create an important blog post from the company.
5. Educate Users
When it comes to educating customers about businesses, there is no one suited better than a community manager. Marketers tend to use complicated words and don’t always connect with so-called “regular people.” The community manager, on the other hand, is intimately in touch with the pain points customers are experience. A community manager writes blog posts, best practices, social media content, community posts, and replies directly to customers in order to educate them in ways that all customers understand.
With their superior understanding of customers, community managers can provide an important viewpoint for those inside of your business. The community manager accomplishes five important tasks: improving public perception, enhancing customer service & support, driving awareness, collecting analysis & feedback, and educating users. Simply put, the community manager is valuable because they speak directly to customers in a way that they understand and appreciate.
