Customer insight has traditionally come from standard customer research methods including customer surveys and focus groups but more and more, online communities are fast becoming the single best place to gain immediate and actionable customer insight.
Online communities are extremely useful. Fundamentally, they are a good place for customers to exchange views; get help and advice; discuss ideas for future product and service development and in some cases, it’s a place to raise issues and challenges to the status quo.
Using your online community views for customer insight is an added benefit but you should consider how you might approach this with your customers.
Many user groups are successful because there is no active corporate monitoring, but what should you do if you do wish to actively monitor and report on conversations taking place?
Clearly, you need to discuss with your online community their value to your business and how helpful their insight is in fixing customer problems or in creating conversations that will assist with product development. The right thing to do is to request permission to either record the online community discussions or to request permissions from individuals participating in the session you wish to record. Potentially, this could inhibit and restrict the value of the conversation. In some cases, people may wish to have formal acknowledgment for their contribution, but in most cases, managing the online community in an open and transparent way will enable both the organization and the participants to work together more collaboratively.
Depending upon the size of your online community you could actually have statistically robust insight but even if you didn’t; that snap shot in time; that mini-vignette of your performance at that very moment, could be worth its’ weight in gold.
If your team needs a marketer skilled in engaging online communities and delivering valuable consumer insights, look no further than marketingmoves for your technology marketing recruitment. Contact Melvin Day, mday@marketingmoves.com
