Building a customer community isn’t just a trend—it’s a proven business strategy that top brands like Salesforce, Apple, and Microsoft use to reduce costs, boost engagement, and build brand loyalty.
If companies like LEGO, HubSpot, and Duolingo rely on customer communities to drive business success, what’s stopping your company from doing the same?
Let’s break down why you need a customer community by reverse-engineering the success of these brands.
1. Reduce Support Costs with Peer-to-Peer Help
What Leading Brands Do:
- Apple, Microsoft, and Adobe have thriving customer forums where users answer each other’s questions.
- Customers help solve issues faster than support teams, reducing ticket volume.
- Verified answers and knowledge bases improve self-service adoption.
Why Your Business Needs This:
The Problem: Your support team is overwhelmed with repetitive questions.
The Solution: A community lets customers help each other, cutting down on support tickets and operational costs.
Example: If Apple and Microsoft can save in support costs with their communities, your business can, too.
2. Drive Customer Engagement & Loyalty
What Leading Brands Do:
- Duolingo and Notion use communities to keep users engaged beyond the product itself.
- Gamification (leaderboards, badges) keeps customers active and invested.
- Engaged customers stay longer and buy more.
Why Your Business Needs This:
The Problem: Customers sign up but don’t engage or return.
The Solution: A community creates an ongoing relationship with customers, increasing retention.
Example: Notion’s community encourages users to share workflows and templates, turning passive users into power users. Your business can create similar engagement loops.
Download our FREE guide to community engagement strategies
3. Turn Customers Into Brand Advocates
What Leading Brands Do:
- LEGO Ideas lets users submit designs, and winning ones become real products.
- HubSpot’s community encourages experts to share knowledge, creating brand ambassadors.
- Customers become influencers who promote the brand organically.
Why Your Business Needs This:
The Problem: You’re spending too much on marketing and struggling to build trust.
The Solution: A community creates brand advocates who promote you for free.
Example: If LEGO can crowdsource product ideas from customers, imagine what your community can generate—referrals, testimonials, and user-generated content.
4. Collect Valuable Product Feedback & Innovation Ideas
What Leading Brands Do:
- Salesforce Trailblazer & Atlassian Community use forums to gather user feedback and shape product roadmaps.
- Feature request portals allow users to vote on ideas, ensuring products evolve based on real needs.
- Saves brands from wasting resources on unwanted features.
Why Your Business Needs This:
The Problem: You don’t have enough customer feedback or insight into what they actually want.
The Solution: A customer community creates a direct feedback loop, helping you improve products faster and smarter.
Example: If brands like Atlassian can co-create products with their communities, why not let your customers guide your next innovation?
5. Improve SEO & Attract New Customers
What Leading Brands Do:
- Spotify, Adobe, and Microsoft communities generate massive amounts of SEO-friendly content.
- Forums, discussions, and Q&As rank on Google, bringing in new users.
- High engagement boosts domain authority, making brands more discoverable.
Why Your Business Needs This:
The Problem: Your website struggles to rank on Google, and customer acquisition costs are rising.
The Solution: A community generates free, user-driven content that boosts SEO and attracts new customers.
Example: If Microsoft’s community discussions appear in top search results, your brand can harness the same organic growth strategy.
If Industry Leaders Build Customer Communities, Why Not You?
Top brands don’t build customer communities for fun—they do it because it works.
If brands like Apple and HubSpot leverage communities to reduce support costs, drive engagement, build advocacy, collect feedback, and improve SEO, then your business can, too.
Ready to Build Your Customer Community? At Social Edge Consulting, we specialize in customer community solutions. We support businesses with strategy, implementation, and platform selection to help you create a thriving, high-value community.
