Everyone has a different business or research objective for running a customer online panel, whether for concept and product testing or customer feedback. Your objectives are the starting point for us at Beehive, as it influences just about every aspect of your panel including its design.
Designing a global online panel
Your objectives will determine the size of your online panel, and who your target audience/respondents are. The type of interaction you want to have with your respondents will influence how you mine for information and dictate the type of panel you run; this might be a straightforward quantitative panel or one of a number of more qualitative community types. The difference between these is largely to do with the extent to which you want to allow two-way communication – between you and your respondents, and between respondents.
You also need to bear in mind that the type of information you need to get to has implications for whether you can select to run the panel in English or will need to provide respondents the option of using their language of preference or residence. Some questions will have country specific answers, such as those around the availability of brands and relating to currency. Assuming you have allowed respondents the option of using their language of preference to complete the survey, you will need to consider at the panel design phase how to manage responses to questions specific to their country of residence.
How do you plan to manage respondent queries? You’ll need to answer queries quickly and preferably in the respondent’s chosen language. How you reply and the speed with which you respond will impact their perception of your brand.
What methodology should you use? Qual or quant, or a blend of both? How should you run your panel? It doesn’t necessarily need to be online, although this is usually a more efficient and cost-effective method. Focusing again on your target respondents for a moment, you need to reach out to them using their preferred channel of communication in order to keep the panel representative. If they aren’t online, then do you consider using the telephone or other channels?
Case study: A global panel in action
Nespresso challenged Beehive to come up with a global panel that would enable it to source feedback in a systematic way across 13 countries and consolidate its customer insight practices, allowing it continually to improve its performance.
See the case study…