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No Question Left Behind: Transforming Community Engagement Through Effective Communication

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Member engagement is crucial for any online community. At Constant Contact, they’ve implemented an innovative initiative called “No Question Left Behind,” which focuses on enhancing the user experience by ensuring that every question from their community members is answered promptly and accurately. Launched in 2023, this program not only aims to improve engagement but also to streamline the way they manage unanswered inquiries.

The primary goal of the “No Question Left Behind” initiative is to ensure that community members feel heard and valued. By requiring that all questions receive a meaningful first response within 24 hours, the community team fosters a culture of promptness and responsiveness. This initiative is also geared towards encouraging members to search for answers before posting, ultimately benefiting not just individual users but the community as a whole.

Key Program Features

These five key program features helped the Constant Contact community team meet their goals.

Timely First Response: Each question posted receives a meaningful reply within 24 hours. The goal is to not just acknowledge the question, but to engage deeply and provide useful insights. For instance, a response that encourages further dialogue and provides troubleshooting steps is a mark of a truly effective community.

Encouragement to Mark Answers: Community managers proactively encourage users to mark their inquiries as “answered” if they are satisfied with the response. This can be done through follow-up messages and in the response posts themselves, promoting a sense of closure and completion for users.

Automated Reminders: If a question remains unmarked as answered after a week, the team sends a gentle reminder email. This reiterates the importance of marking questions for the benefit of future users who may have similar queries.

Community Manager Intervention: After two weeks, community managers are empowered to manually mark questions as answered if they feel the responses were adequate. This intervention ensures that no question lingers indefinitely without resolution.

Responsive to Feedback: The final step involves listening closely to user feedback. If a member feels their question remains unanswered, our managers are ready to dive back in and provide further assistance, addressing any lingering concerns.

Impressive Outcomes

Since its rollout, the “No Question Left Behind” initiative has yielded remarkable results. The team has seen the number of successfully answered questions skyrocket from 900 in October 2023 to over 3900 by August 2024. Additionally, the Constant Contact community has enjoyed a 67% year-over-year increase in page views, demonstrating enhanced user engagement with their content.

Advice for Implementing a Similar Program

For those looking to establish a similar initiative, Chris Stallone, Manager, Community and Social Care at Constant Contact advises focusing on user education about the importance of searching before asking a question. The Constant Contact community’s platform includes feature that automatically suggests relevant posts when users start typing their inquiries promotes exploration and reduces redundancy. Additionally, displaying the top five most relevant posts helps users find useful information quickly

Explore more ways to improve your community program in the State of Community Management 2024 report.

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Scalable Self-Service in Online Communities

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Analog Devices, Inc.’s EngineerZone® is a support community that enables customers to engage online with ADI experts and fellow engineers to find answers to complex and frequently asked technical product and application questions.

Challenge: Educate educate existing and potential customers in a scalable, self-service format.

Analog Devices’ Gigabit Multimedia Serial Link (GMSLTM) technology is highly-utilized in the automotive industry. With the technology expanding to other markets including agriculture,industrial automation, and shipping, ADI wanted to offer GMSL training to their customers.

Scalable Self-Service in Online Communities

Community members had also recently requested more course-oriented training material to elevate the support experience.

Goal: Elevate support with a self-service tool

A main goal of the ADI EngineerZone® community is customer support. The community provide various content types for their members to self-serve before seeking support in or outside the community. It was a logical next step to provide training within the community to enhance the customer/member experience and help reduce support queries.

This was the perfect opportunity to collaborate on an educational element within the community that would aid in customer support efforts for the GMSL technology.

Outcome: Increased engagement with expansion potential

The ADI community team built an LMS experience, GMSL U, within their community, EngineerZone (powered by Verint). GMSL U consists of an online catalog of GMSL trainings to equip professionals with the courses necessary to fully understand and implement GMSL across their projects. Members may watch video courses in three tracks and receive a certificate of completion.

The ADI team designed the online university with scale in mind, a template for future expansion into other popular technologies. Members are embracing GMSL U and the community and stakeholders are excited about the uptick in engagement.

Advice from Lisa: Build for the future, not the present.

Lisa has four recommendations for any online community professional looking to scale their community support options with a self-service model.

  • Flexibility is key – Build your community on a versatile platform like Verint Community.
  • Don’t design in a box – Meet with stakeholders to define today’s requirements but think about what will happen when the program expands.
  • Put members first – Look back at your member surveys to seek out projects and content opportunities that align with member feedback.
  • Make data and UX-driven decisions – It’s okay to say no to a feature request if it negatively impacts the customer journey.

Get more actionable ideas for community success in the State of Community Management 2024 report.

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The Power of Metrics: Enhancing Community Engagement at ISTE+ASCD

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Lauren Kelly, the Director of Membership and Community at ISTE+ASCD, shared their recent journey of overhauling their community strategy in 2023 in the State of Community Management 2024 report. Her organization made significant shifts in their community structure that not only aimed to enhance engagement but also to create a more inclusive space for all.

The Goal: A Community for All

ISTE+ASCD took a bold step by migrating their community to a new platform and opening the doors wider than ever before. It wasn’t just about retaining their existing pay-for membership; they wanted to create an accessible community where everyone in their audience could participate for free.

Additionally, they transitioned from a rigid structure of limited groups to a more dynamic model where individuals could opt into groups that truly resonate with their interests.

Tracking Success: The Community Scorecard

With a dramatically expanded community and a more complex structure, they realized the need for a refined method to measure the health and success of their community groups. They developed a community scorecard that would highlight critical metrics, allowing them to identify which groups needed more support and which might need to be closed or combined.

Their prioritized metrics include:

  • Total group members
  • New group members in the last six months
  • New posts made in the last six months
  • Unique user views from group members within that same timeframe

By calculating scorecards twice a year and incorporating additional metrics, such as posts per group member, they could assign scores that clearly indicate where each group stands in relation to their engagement categories:

  • Exemplary Engagement- Maintain or Reduce Support
  • High Engagement – Maintain Current Support
  • Moderate Engagement – Additional Support Required
  • Low Engagement – Immediate Action Required

This innovative approach empowered our team to more effectively direct limited resources toward groups that would benefit the most from their engagement efforts. Whether it was seeding discussions, encouraging participation, or organizing volunteers to enhance activity, they were able to target their support resources where it was needed most.

Their ultimate aim is to ensure that the majority of groups score in the High or Exemplary categories. They set an ambitious goal to increase the percentage of groups ranked as High or Exemplary from 60% to 80%, and early indicators suggest they are on the right track.

Advice for Success

Lauren shared this advice for other community professional:

For anyone looking to embark on a similar initiative, here’s my key piece of advice: there isn’t a “one size fits all” success metric for a community. The data you track and the metrics that define your success will be unique to your community’s purpose and goals. Understanding your community deeply will empower you to create a data-driven picture of its health. It’s not about achieving a certain aesthetic or impressing stakeholders; it’s about having a realistic and accurate measurement system that informs your decision-making process. As we continue to refine our scorecards and adjust our rubric in line with our community’s evolution, I’m excited about the impact we can make on our members’ engagement journey. Together, we’re not just building a community; we’re nurturing a thriving ecosystem of learners and educators, united by shared interests and a commitment to growth.

By harnessing the power of metrics and creating an adaptable structure, ISTE+ASCD is paving the way for meaningful connections, deeper engagement, and a vibrant community spirit.

Learn more tactics to increase community engagement in the State of Community Management 2024 report.

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Building a Mobile-First Community to Meet Members Where They Are

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Launched in 2020, Community Food Navigator envisions a food system rooted in justice, in which the people who produce, distribute, and consume food also control its production, distribution, and governance. Their mission is to expand food sovereignty — particularly in Black, Brown, and Indigenous communities — by engaging Chicago-area food growers, producers, educators, and eaters; strengthening connections and collaboration; telling more truthful stories about the Chicago food ecosystem; and redistributing power.

Their community already existed in Chicagoland, but the Community Food Navigator team recognized the need for an online place for collaboration amidst peak COVID-19 conditions. In-person meet-ups were not an option. It was critical to the team that members felt on-going ownership of the space they co-created, rather than handing them a tool that didn’t meet their needs.

Learn how the Community Food Navigator community team built a mobile-first app to meet their members where they were.

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Nurturing a Thriving Community: Insights from UiPath

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Andreea Tomescu is the Senior Community Manager at UiPath. She shares insights into the dynamic UiPath Community, a thriving ecosystem that embodies the transformative power of automation and artificial intelligence. With over three million members worldwide, this community serves as a space for exploration, learning, collaboration, and success.

Goals of the UiPath Community

At UiPath, the importance of fostering an environment that prioritizes continuous learning and innovation is top of mind for the Community Team.

To this end, their online community is built on several key goals:

Nurturing a Thriving Community
  • Education and Skill Development: Through the UiPath Academy, forums, events, newsletters, blogs, and YouTube channels, ample resources are provided for individuals looking to enhance their skills in automation and AI.
  • Community Building and Engagement: The team actively engages members through community events, forums, and Champion programs, ensuring that everyone feels included and valued.
  • Product Development and Improvement: Feedback from the community is vital. Forums and Champion programs help gather insights that guide product enhancements and improvements.
  • Thought Leadership and Industry Influence: Through events, including the annual State of the Automation Professional report and various Champion programs, UiPath establishes its position as a leader in the automation space.

Celebrating the Outcomes

Over the past seven years, the growth of the UiPath Academy has been astounding, with user numbers skyrocketing from 260,000 to an impressive 1.7 million. The forum has also seen significant engagement, expected to reach 170,000 users in 2024—a tenfold increase!

In 2024 alone, UiPath engaged 376 Community Champions and organized 552 community events across 67 cities, generating over 178,000 RSVPs. The forum recorded 25,000 discussions, and 45 crowdsourced blog articles were published by community members. Additionally, the newsletter boasts nearly 30,000 subscribers, with an average open rate of 23% and a click rate of 16%.

Nurturing a Thriving Community

Advice for Building a Community

Creating a successful community program can be likened to nurturing a garden. It requires time, patience, and consistent care. Here are some key strategies to foster a thriving community:

  • Cultivate a Welcoming Atmosphere: Ensuring that every member feels valued and included is essential for community growth.
  • Encourage Active Participation: Motivating members to share their experiences, ask questions, and engage in discussions is crucial. A vibrant community flourishes when everyone is empowered to contribute.
  • Facilitate Knowledge Sharing: Creating opportunities for members to learn from one another and share best practices can be accomplished through workshops, meetups, or virtual gatherings.
  • Recognize and Reward Contributions: Showing appreciation for active contributors through public acknowledgment, awards, or exclusive benefits fosters loyalty and encourages ongoing engagement.
  • Maintain Consistency: Organizing regular events and ensuring consistent communication keeps members connected and engaged.

As UiPath continues to grow and evolve, its commitment to fostering an inclusive, engaging, and supportive community remains unwavering. By focusing on collective goals of education, engagement, and collaboration, the community empowers its members to thrive in the world of automation and AI.

Explore more community management insights and get new ideas from the State of Community Management report.

Nurturing a Thriving Community

Building a Cost Impact Model for Community Growth

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Esri is the global market leader in geographic information system (GIS) software, location intelligence, and mapping.

The Esri Community Team uses data-driven models to power community-centric initiatives, and align community efforts with the company’s mission, vision, and values.

Despite having high engagement and satisfied members, the Esri Community team struggled to get organization-wide buy-in for expanded community use cases.

Learn how the Esri Community Team built a Cost Impact Model for their online community program and design an impact model of your own in this community case study.

Download the Esri Case Study

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Building Connections Through Community: Esri’s Storytelling Initiative

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In an era where digital connections are more important than ever, Esri stands out as a best-in-class example of innovative community engagement.

As the global leader in geographic information system (GIS) software, Esri has long been committed to harnessing the power of geographic science and technology to create a sustainable world. With a rich history dating back to 1969, Esri continues to demonstrate how geographic approaches can provide insightful solutions to complex problems. The Esri Community—a platform designed to facilitate knowledge-sharing and foster collaboration, amplifies success stories through their innovative storytelling program.

The Heart of the Esri Community

At the core of Esri’s community storytelling initiative are two multimedia series that showcase the tangible benefits of community participation.

Building Connections Through Community
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1. Esri Community Member Spotlights: Launched in September 2022, this series spotlights customers and partners demonstrating the positive impact of the Esri Community. Featuring monthly stories tailored for both external and internal audiences, this initiative helps to cultivate recognition of the community’s value while fostering deeper connections among members. The stories are not just inspirational; they provide practical use-cases and model behaviors that resonate with a wide range of users.

2. Esri Community: Inside Success: This quarterly series kicked off in early 2023, focusing on Esri staff who successfully integrate the community into their daily work. By providing an internal perspective, these interviews aim to raise awareness among employees about the community’s benefits and encourage greater participation.

Goals of the Community Program

Esri’s primary goal with these series is to enhance education and awareness of the community’s value among current and prospective users. By leveraging real experiences from peers, they seek to create content that is not only engaging but also beneficial. These stories introduce various facets of the Esri experience, ensuring a broader audience can relate to and learn from them.

Positive Outcomes and Success Metrics

The impact of these storytelling initiatives has been significant. Since the launch of the Member Spotlights, there have been over 3,000 page views across nine published stories, reflecting a genuine interest in the community’s activities and insights. Notably, the inspirational narratives featuring teams like The National Interagency Fire Center have been adapted into major publications like ArcNews and ArcWatch, further expanding their reach. The Inside Success series was similarly well-received indicating a thriving internal dialogue around community engagement. The spotlighted members’ enthusiasm often translates into social media promotions, while Esri account managers utilize these stories as relationship-building tools during outreach efforts.

Creative Integration into the Broader Strategy

Esri has taken steps to creatively integrate these storytelling initiatives into its overall community strategy:

  • Year-End Wrap Up Report: Early in 2023, a multimedia report using ArcGIS StoryMaps celebrated the previous year’s accomplishments, including a dedicated section for Community Member Spotlights, which highlighted the metrics and stories that defined 2022.
  • Redesigned Quarterly Highlights Report: The Esri Community team has revamped its reporting structure to emphasize key information in a visually appealing format. This report includes dedicated sections for Member Spotlights and Inside Success features, thus reinforcing the metrics and engagement levels.
  • Forum Re-engagement Strategy: Recognizing the need for consistent activity levels in community forums, Esri initiated an audit process followed by a resource-packed outreach to Place Managers. This strategy emphasizes the benefits of community participation, showcasing successful integrations by Esri staff that foster meaningful customer feedback and collaboration.

Through its innovative storytelling initiatives, Esri not only showcases the incredible value of its community but also embodies its commitment to fostering connections that lead to shared success. By amplifying voices, celebrating achievements, and encouraging collaboration, Esri is laying the foundation for a vibrant and engaged community that truly harnesses the power of “The Science of Where.”

Get advice from the Esri community team in the 2024 State of Community Management Report.

Driving Engagement and Innovation in the UKG Community: A Strategic Success Story

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Meet Allison Brotman:

Name: Allison Brotman
Title: VP, Learning and Community
Organization: UKG

As the VP, Learning and Community, Allison Brotman leads the charge in fostering customer learning and engagement at UKG. Her mission? To ensure customers not only adopt but actively engage with the UKG Community, experiencing its continuous improvements.

A Strategic Initiative to Enhance the UKG Community

In the first year post-launch, the primary goal was clear: boost customer adoption and engagement within the UKG Community. The initiative focused on showcasing ongoing investments to enhance the community experience. Specific objectives included:

UKG Community: A Strategic Success Story Allison Brotman
  • Increase Engagement: Grow the percentage of customer accounts engaging in the UKG Community to 80%.
  • Reduce Unanswered Questions: Decrease unanswered questions to 19%.
  • Optimize Search Experience: Achieve an 85% visitor click-through rate and decrease the content gap to 2%.
  • Collaborate Across Teams: Work with IT and other business partners to deliver on 90 requests and projects aimed at improving the UKG Community.

Outstanding Outcomes

The results of this initiative were remarkable:

  • Engagement Milestones: Starting the year with 69% engagement, the UKG Community ended with impressive numbers:
    • 98% engagement for UKG Pro Suite customers.
    • 82% engagement for UKG Ready Suite customers.
  • Unanswered Questions Reduced: The unanswered question rate dropped from 22% to 17% by:
    • Optimizing automation to route customer questions to the appropriate feeds.
    • Recognizing and empowering “Most Valuable Neighbors” (MVNs)—super users who share their expertise with the community.
    • Expanding the CommunityMaker program, enabling UKG SMEs to scale their knowledge to benefit the broader customer base.
  • Improved Search Metrics: Visitor click-through rates increased from 81% to 84%, nearing the 85% target. The content gap metric improved from 3% to 2%, demonstrating enhanced search efficiency.
  • Collaboration Success: Surpassing expectations, the team collaborated on over 441 requests and projects, significantly enhancing the community experience.

A Thriving Community = A Strategic Success Story

Today, the UKG Community boasts over 250,000 members, including customers, partners, and UKG employees (affectionately called U Krewers). It has become the go-to destination for users to learn, connect, and share ideas.

Lessons Learned and Advice for Your Strategic Community Initiatives

Allison shares this invaluable advice for launching a similar program:

  1. Define Clear Goals: Know what you want to achieve and how you’ll measure success.
  2. Set Measurable Objectives: Align team and individual goals with the overall mission, ensuring everyone understands their role and impact.
  3. Monitor and Communicate: Regularly track progress and celebrate wins to keep momentum. Adapt as needed if initial strategies fall short.

“Don’t be afraid to try something new to achieve your goals. You got this!”

The UKG Community’s success story illustrates the power of strategic planning, cross-functional collaboration, and a relentless focus on customer engagement. With a clear roadmap and commitment to innovation, any organization can achieve similar milestones.

Read more community case studies in the 2024 State of Community Management report.

Three Ways to Re-Energize a Quiet Online Community

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Inheriting a community with 39,000 members sounds like a dream come true, except for when the engagement rate is <1% — oh, and a lot of the members are upset because they were moved to a new platform without warning or resources. Welcome to the world of Extreme Networks when Sam Pirok started as community moderator. 

On top of figuring out how to make the community valuable and engaging for its members, Sam had an additional challenge: She’d never worked in community before. Her background was in technical support, so she approached the large, quiet, and angry community with a logical question: Why are they coming here and how can I help? Here are the three steps Sam took to help get her community back on track, talking, and thriving.

Temperature check: Surveying the members

The only way Sam could determine why members were coming to Extreme Network’s community was by asking them. She put together a survey for the community members and let them tell her what they felt the issues were.

“You have people out there who are using your product and want to tell you their opinion,” she says. “You’d be surprised at the type of meaningful ideas that can be brought forth.”

As the results came in, she formed a game plan:

  • Show, don’t tell. Sam replied directly to members who left comments in the survey — the data was being collected and examined by a real person who cares and wants to help.
  • Do what you can. Sam built trust with the members by solving any low hanging fruit pain points as quickly as she could.
  • Know your limits. Sam learned about pain points that were beyond her control — company policy, for example. While she might not have been able to solve those issues outright, she at least learned what areas she could avoid making worse.

The survey also helped Sam get a better understanding of who she might be able to turn to for help.

Finding allies: Paging all super users

Even in the quietest communities, you’ll find members who are out there actively contributing to their group. Sam’s community was no exception, and through the survey she was able to identify the super users she could use as allies and advocates when it came to making the community more valuable for its members.

“Getting the 18 super users didn’t seem like it would make a big difference, but those little steps helped a great deal.”

Sam reached out to them individually to introduce herself, and to thank them for their commitment to the group, and realized they just wanted to be heard and acknowledged. 

“I thought they would need more, but recognition was a huge factor on its own,” she says. “Saying ‘thank you’ and helping where I could went a long way. Giving them input into upcoming projects was also a big motivator and trust builder.”

As the community started taking off, Sam also began reaching out to frequent employee users to ask their opinions. Some of her questions help her determine user satisfaction with communities in general, like what other communities they belong to and what they do/don’t like about those communities.

“You’d be surprised at how helpful the users in the community can be.”

‘I hear you’: Communication is key

After she had her survey results and her super users, it was time for Sam to get to work. 

“You’re there to build trust with your members that someone is going to answer them. If no one is answering, they won’t post,” Sam says. “Your goal is to build a relationship with your members and super users. Let them know you see them out there engaging in the community and thank them for their efforts.Involve them!”

Some tactics Sam found useful for communicating with members includes:

  • Templated communications. Templates can help make the process of communicating with members easier, but you don’t want to sound like a robot. Instead of just copying and pasting, Sam uses friendly language in her templates — it sounds like it’s come directly from her — and she knows which actions deserve a more personal response. 

    “Receiving a template isn’t horrible — it’s still an acknowledgement — but if it’s a real accomplishment, the personal response will be very much appreciated,” she says. “For instance, someone who earns 100 points in a day. They’re obviously very engaged and enthusiastic, and they deserve to be personally acknowledged. It all comes down to quality vs. quantity.”
  • Level set expectations. Albert Einstein was the one who determined that time is relative (i.e. ​​the rate at which time passes depends on your frame of reference), which can be problematic if you use generic timeframes with members. After all, “soon” to one person might mean 30 minutes, and half a day to another. Instead, Sam encourages you to provide a specific time frame and stick with it. 

    “Once you set that deadline, be sure to honor it, whether you have a solution or not. Let the user know what you’ve been doing to try resolving the issue and let them know when you’ll reach out again,” Sam says. “Keep setting and meeting deadlines. It’s a wonderfully effective way to build trust.”
  • Communicate, communicate, communicate. There’s no such thing as “over communicating.” 

    “ Be annoying if you have to,” she says, “but let them know you’re there and working on the problem. Don’t leave anything up to assumption — the assumption won’t be in your favor.”

In a lot of quiet communities — support like Sam’s or otherwise — your members are still there, they just want to know the community will be worth their time, and that they’re being heard when they do interact. By implementing these three tactics, you’ll be able to ensure that your community can start its engagement journey off on the right foot.

Using Community Dashboards to Tell a Story

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A thoughtful narrative combined with powerful metrics can help you tell your community story in a way that connects with stakeholders and executives, unlocking additional resources and providing you with needed advocates in your corner.

But, how do you decide what story to tell? Many community platforms now come with built-in analytics and reporting capabilities, but if you aren’t speaking the same language as your leadership team, even these easy to capture measurements might fall flat.

Georgina Donahue, Director of Community at Pragmatic Institute, used metrics-based storytelling to build community dashboards that clicked with their leadership team.

Read Georgina’s story

About Pragmatic Institute

Founded as Pragmatic Marketing in 1993, Pragmatic Institute has a strong track record of providing real-world insights, actionable best practices and proven tools to product managers and product marketing managers around the world.  

In late 2018, recognizing the power of data and the increasing need for a real understanding of data science and AI among business and product professionals, Pragmatic Marketing purchased The Data Incubator (TDI), a leading data science training organization. The two companies rebranded, and became Pragmatic Institute in 2019.

Then in 2020, Pragmatic Institute grew once again, this time acquiring the masterminds behind the leading design courses at Cooper Professional Education. Pragmatic’s goal is to create a bridge between product, design and data that will help the organizations they work with identify the right opportunities and create the most innovative solutions for their markets.

Together, Pragmatic’s design, data and product practices create a powerful professional education platform to enhance the knowledge and skills of key contributors and teams.

Read more Community Case Studies

Interested in more online community management case studies? Learn how top community programs at organizations like Aetna, Blue Prism, Heifer International, The World Bank Group, and more use community-led programs to increase engagement, boost customer loyalty, improve the employee experience, encourage innovation, and more.