In this article I will discuss the following:
- What is Community Cloud?
- Lightning Community Cloud Overview
- Evolution of Community Cloud
- Examples of some of companies using community
- Types of Community
What is Community Cloud
Salesforce Community Cloud has gained a lot of popularity. Therefore, it is essential to understand all the concepts related to it.
In a layman language, we can say community is a way in which people can communicate with each other. So now you will think I am saying community is a forum. However, community is much more than forum. It is window to reach to the potential end users by using full potential of Salesforce to build your own Eco-system.Community is build using community cloud which sits on the top of Salesforce org.
Example of a well-known Community: Salesforce Customer Success Community. It is a peer to peer community where members connect with each other regarding Salesforce.
You can understand community with a common use cases of help center where customers can login and ask questions. It helps in giving users rich branded experience.
So basically, Community Cloud is a combination of Website, portal and Social
Website + Portal + Social = Community Cloud
Website – Websites are used to engage with customers
Portal– It is business data and processes showcasing to end users
Social– It is social collaboration i.e. peer to peer engagement or service agent helping customers and partners to get deals.
One Salesforce org can have multiple communities. You can create different communities for different purposes.
For example, you could create a customer support community to reduce support costs, or you could have a community dedicated to an upcoming event.
Lightning Community Cloud Overview
Employees, partners and customers can connect into community and can see personalize information, responsive UI, integrated data with CRM, moderated content and different templates
Evolution of community Cloud
Visualforce + Tabs: In 2013, Community Cloud was officially launched. Everything was built on visual force
Customer service lightning template came into picture in 2015. It focused on providing out of the box component which were responsive. Community builder helped customers to create communities. It grew into WYSISWYG ( What you see is what you get).
Lightning Bolt was finally introduced bringing next level to the community. Partners could create solutions and distribute it. It means partner could create custom components, apps, processes and then put it into managed package in the app exchange and distribute it to customers
Examples of some companies using the communities
Hulu
It has created help center using community cloud. It brings all Salesforce data and business processes to Salesforce community
Home Depot
Nokia
Dell Technologies
Different types of community
There are two types of communities in Salesforce which are as following:
- Internal Community – The Internal community is used for the members who are directly part of the organization i.e. Employees.
- External Community- External Community is created for the users who are not directly part of the organization.
Types of External Community-
Partner Community
Your product is not sold to end users. Example: Car manufacturer sells car to car dealers
Customer Community
Product is sold to end users Example: Water filter sold to end users. Community can show how to use the water filter, how to clean it etc.
Employee Community
It can be used as Hub for your employees. Salesforce Community Cloud gives a one-stop-shop for employees to ask questions, review their schedules, log cases, log tickets for IT, find training materials, search knowledge databases and collaborate with co-workers.
Conclusion
Learning Salesforce Cloud Community is very important as it provides so many features to customers, partners and employees.
