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Community Portals

Community portals were first introduced as a B2C (Business-to-Consumer) application, designed to engage users with each other and the business brand for the real-time exchange of ideas and interaction. Today, the online community concept is being applied in both B2C and B2B (Business-to-Business) contexts, as businesses realize the relational and competitive advantages of engaging in an ongoing dialogue with their core audiences.

Community Portals, Idea Exchanges, Forums and Resource Centers give businesses the ability to link users and potential users with a product or brand in an immediate way, and are designed to grow organically; with user-generated content, ideas, voting tools and discussion.

The feedback loops created in this environment provides several key business benefits, including:

• Deeper audience engagement is created by giving end-users an immediate voice in an environment that is available 24/7;
• Strategic/competitive advantage is found as the business quickly gleans and implements the best user ideas and input;
• Cost-reduction in research occurs as users provide ongoing real-time feedback as to their perception of the brand, product, service, and offer up ideas for improvement;
• Savings in marketing and support budgets are realized as the site helps to address client and prospect questions that would require additional staff and resources;
• Lead qualification is built-in as the prospect moves through the sales funnel; thereby decreasing the cost of acquisition;
• Project costs are cut due to the nature of the SaaS/cloud environment model. By leveraging solutions like Salesforce Ideas, companies can rapidly deploy portal solutions, allowing them to spend less (in time and resources) and quickly realize a return on their investment.

Many of the benefits noted above have been realized by Fair Isaac, as they have recently worked with Reside to design and launch their B2B Community Portal. This first-of-its-kind solution was launched in less than six weeks, and required integration between five SaaS/cloud services including: Salesforce Ideas (salesforce.com), Lithium, TypePad, Intraware, and Amazon EC2.

» Read the case study for full details of the project and outcomes.

If your business is interested in leveraging Community Portals to connect with your key audiences, Reside is interested in speaking with you. Connect with us today through our simple online form to get started. We look forward to helping your business grow, using the Web.

See an example of a Community Portal in action. Check out the Fair Isaac case study to see how this first-of-its-kind solution is creating new connections and ideas!

» View case study here
» Download print-version (PDF)

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