Web 2.0 and social media have revolutionised the way customers interact with companies and brands. Customer advisory panels and online brand communities provide a platform for a genuine dialogue with consumers, putting the voice of the customer at the heart of the business and on the desktops of decision-makers. Get started with building your online community.

Save money – save 40% or more of your market research budget

Utilise your own customer contacts to switch your externally commissioned customer research to your own panel. Use it for: Customer satisfaction surveys, customer elements of competitor tracking, Ad-hoc projects e.g.: ad testing, concept testing, new proposition development, or online qualitative work. The cost saving allows you to get far more of your “research list” done with the budget you have – giving you more research for your money.

Save time - do market research which you otherwise wouldn’t be able to turn around quickly enough. With a turnaround time of hours – it is quicker to ask the customer on your panel than debate how they would feel. For example: get customers involved earlier in the product development process, and more frequently, monitor real-time drivers of retention with current customers, or provide rapid research on topical issues to guide a PR response.

Bring your customers to life for decision makers around your business. Allow decision makers to pose quick questions on key topics and put the face (literally) of your customer on their desktops and present compelling moment of truth product/service experiences from consumers via mobile phone or webcam video. The result, less assertion and more fact about what customers think, expressed in their own words, today. Be a business that really walks the talk of putting customers at the heart of the business and understands the voice of the customer.

Provide a rich source of content and customer testimonials. A customer advisory panel or online brand community provides a quick, valid, cost effective source of customer testimonials – enabling you to refresh copy for direct mail and email marketing activities faster and more frequently, using customer experiences in their own words to inform campaigns. Use it to provide content for web and microsites, e/newsletters, membership magazines, conference papers, annual reports and investor communications.

Provide a positive impact on advocacy and word of mouth. A customer advisory panel or online brand community. Not only does this give customers a route to give feedback, it allows them to feel involved and engaged with your brand.

There are a number of approaches you can use to get closer to your customer. Each approach brings varying degrees of customer-centricity and commercial benefit, starting from relatively simple contact points with your current customers via survey mail-outs through to a sophisticated dialogue with your brand stakeholders in a full online brand community. Get started with building your online community.

"At its most effective, an online brand community goes beyond being a research strategy or marketing strategy, rather it becomes a business strategy which has an impact on all levels of the business." Mike Hall, Partner, Verve.