Elite Online Engagement with Scottrade

Cassaundra Sigaran, senior manager of Scottrade's online community, spoke with CMIQ about the company's best practices for building an online community.

Elite Online Engagement with Scottrade

As an online stock trading company, Scottrade is constantly challenged with giving customers the sense that there is a human face behind the company. To clear this hurdle, Scottrade launched a free online community for its customers. Nearly 50,000 have opted in.

"We have to work harder because everything we do is online and through the written word," said Cassaundra Sigaran, senior manager of Scottrade’s online community.

According to Sigaran, Scottrade’s online community helps the company convey its personality and inject human interactions into an online business. In the online community, members can do research on stock trading, swap tips and strategies with other community members, and generally interact "with a genuine person," Sigaran said.

The company attributes its up tick in profit to its customers’ better education, feeling of inclusion and an ensuing increased confidence.

The online community is "challenging the traditions and beliefs about this industry," Sigaran said.

And even though the baby boomer generation (Scottrade’s main customer base) is not universally web savvy, it is currently the fastest growing demographic on social media.

"We’re there to support people who are not tech or social media savvy," Sigaran said. "We make the online community very intuitive."

The next step for Scottrade is rolling out a social gaming component to the online community.

"Take the social gaming and connect that with education and learning," Sigaran said of the company’s future plans, suggesting that every company investigate social gaming opportunities.

To hear all of Scottrade’s best practices for a successful online community, check out the full interview above.