Case Study: Top Ten U.S. Bank achieves a thriving peer-to-peer community that empowers small businesses with Higher Logic Vanilla

How this Top Ten U.S. Bank uses Vanilla Forums to Empower Small Businesses

U.S. Bank, a top-ten U.S. Bank by assets, faced low engagement among its millions of small-business customers and lacked a place to capture and share their collective knowledge. To create a branded, customer-only peer-to-peer space, the bank chose Higher Logic Vanilla (Vanilla Forums community platform) for its customizability and cost-effectiveness.

Higher Logic Vanilla delivered a customized online community integrated into U.S. Bank’s small business portal—with features like “Ask an Expert” and launch support—while the bank added a full-time community manager. The community saw immediate uptake: dozens of new connections and hundreds of ideas, advice, and solutions shared in a single day, boosting engagement, customer satisfaction, and long-term brand value.