Turn Realized Value into Real Growth: How Community Helps You Win After the Sale

‍Gartner’s latest survey is sounding a clear alarm for go-to-market teams: 73% of Chief Sales Officers (CSOs) have made growth from existing customers their top priority for 2025. For years, the focus was on net-new acquisition. But with tighter budgets, CFO-led buying decisions, and greater demand for measurable ROI, companies are shifting gears. According to Gartner, “Realized value is now the currency of expansion.”

So what is realized value? It’s the measurable business impact your product or service actually delivers after the sale. Not the promise you made during the pitch, but the outcomes you can prove.

And this is exactly where Community steps in.

From One-Time Customers to Lifelong Communities

Community is a conversational engagement platform that helps brands turn casual users into loyal fans, and those loyal fans into advocates. Through real-time, two-way SMS messaging, Community helps companies stay close to their audiences and capture value-driven insights that deepen relationships and drive loyalty.

According to Gartner, one of the biggest obstacles to customer growth is the “value gap,” or the disconnect between what was promised in the sales cycle and what was delivered post-sale. “Many organizations are hindered by a customer value gap, as suppliers struggle to convert the promise of their value proposition into realized customer value,” said Daniel Hawkyard, Director Analyst in the Gartner Sales Practice.

With Community, that gap closes because the feedback, preferences, behaviors, and needs of your audience aren’t assumptions or guesswork. They’re directly captured via zero- and first-party data through interactive messaging, polls, content journeys, and personalized replies.

Zero-Party Data Is the New Proof of Value

One of the most powerful elements of Community is that every interaction is a data point you leverage. On traditional platforms like social media, you rent access to your audience. You get vanity metrics and aggregate performance, but little to no visibility into individual behavior or preference. That makes delivering measurable value nearly impossible and direct communication with your customers siloed and unscalable.

Community flips the script. Every message sent and received is tagged with real user attributes, intent signals, and behavioral insights that you can segment, track, and use. That’s zero- and first-party data in action and it’s what enables brands to deliver relevance, not just reach.

As Gartner puts it, “Growth depends on trust. Customers are far more likely to buy more when you can prove past investments paid off.” Community gives you the tools to do exactly that by showing your customers that you not only understand them, but that you’re delivering ongoing value tailored to their needs.

Building Customer Loyalty, Driving Retention, Powering Expansion

Let’s face it: Renewals are no longer guaranteed. Gartner’s data shows that expansion is 6–7x more efficient than acquiring new customers, but those renewals and upsells are being scrutinized harder than ever. CSOs and customer teams need ways to not just retain, but continuously prove value.

That’s where Community’s impact really shines:

• Personalized engagement that feels 1:1, even at scale.
  
  
• Segmented campaigns based on actual behaviors and preferences, not assumptions.
  
  
• Automated follow-ups tied to actions (like content clicks, event attendance, or product usage).
  
  
• Self-identified hand raisers who can be routed to CS, sales, or support for timely activation or upsell.
  
  
• AI-enhanced messaging flows that keep the brand voice intact while scaling customer relationships.

This turns every interaction into a chance to reinforce outcomes and showcase ROI.

Bringing Gartner’s Value Framework to Life with Community

Gartner offers a 5-step framework to close the realized value gap. Let’s see how Community fits into that model:

1. Define Value Metrics Jointly
   With Community, you can survey customers directly, gather inputs, and align expectations early, during onboarding, event attendance, or training.
   
   
2. Transfer the Value Story Post-Sale
   Community enables seamless transitions from sales to success by continuing the conversation in the same channel. It’s not a handoff, it’s a relationship hand-in-hand.
   
   
3. Instrument for Outcome Tracking
   Real-time data from messaging responses, link clicks, and replies allows teams to track usage, satisfaction, and activation instantly.
   
   
4. Deliver Value Reviews, Not Just QBRs
   Use Community to deliver micro-feedback loops, pulse checks, and tailored follow-ups based on what each segment cares about. Let your audience tell you what’s working and then reflect that back to them in the next touchpoint.
   
   
5. Tie Value to Expansion Playbooks
   When someone opts in, answers a question, or expresses interest, Community helps you trigger upsell offers, share new features, or invite them to exclusive programs based on what they’ve already said matters to them.
   
   

Value Doesn’t Stop at the Sale. Neither Should Your Engagement

As Gartner writes, “If you’re not helping your customers realize value, someone else will.” Community makes it possible to keep that value front and center, not only through your product, but through every text message, every follow-up, every moment that matters. It’s a conversation with your customers, at scale, that feels 1:1. 

In 2025, the brands that grow will be the ones that can prove they care and deliver on what they promised. Community gives you the tools to engage meaningfully, track impact, and build the loyalty that turns today’s users into tomorrow’s growth.

Ready to take your realized value to the next level? ‍Request a demo to see how we can help you improve post-sale engagement and build customer loyalty.