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It’s very important that your organisation know who you are listening to so you know for sure you can trust them . With respondents from an access panel it is difficult to find out who they really are, which is why we attached such weight to customer panels.
What is a customer panel?
Before going into the benefits of a customer panel let’s first define what a customer panel is. A customer panel is often also described as a dedicated panel or private panel. However, these are access panels disguised as customer panels, they come in different shapes and forms:
- The most basic form of an access panel
In their most basic form, Access Panels come with a background variable showing that a specific person could be a customer of your company. This person is not recruited through your company and you will never be certain if that person is actually your customer. An Access Panel is accessed by many different research companies, brands and organisations, so any relationship developed is solely between the access panel company and the respondents, not between a brand and its customers. - When your access panel provider recruits for you
An access panel provider can recruit specifically for you and provides other background variables that are important to you. So far so good, just make sure their recruitment is solid and they are not asking blunt questions like “Are you customer of brand X?”. The only issue with this kind of panel is that most of the time it is not very customisable and these respondents will also be utilised in studies for other companies. - The real deal: A customer panel
A genuine customer panel is built only for your company: with your look & feel, with your tone of voice, a recruitment process that aligns with your other communication and panellists recruited from your own customers. By utilizing an integrated platform like Crowdtech Insights, you can combine both quantitative and qualitative insights for a deep understanding of your customers’ needs and behaviors. You and your colleagues are the only ones talking to your panellists and all the data that is collected is yours. By personalizing the research with your own branding through the Branding Upgrade, you can create a consistent brand experience that enhances respondent trust and engagement. The panellists know what they signed up for and will be happy to co-operate because they have previously engaged with your organization and brand.
How motivated are your members?
If a person joins your customer panel, they do this because they want to help your company and they want to be involved with your company. Insight communities, like those described in our article “Unlocking the Power of Insight Communities: A Gateway to Financial Success,” demonstrate how dedicated communities provide comprehensive insights into consumer preferences and behaviors, aiding in informed decision-making and enhancing customer experience. People who are in an access panel did not join to help your company. They probably want to earn some money in their spare time and at best like to fill in questionnaires. This raises a few questions:
- Are they really prepared to help or will they do whatever it takes to earn some money?
- If they join the questionnaire to earn money, how can you make sure their answers are true and that they are who they say they are?
- If they are motivated by money, why would they spend more time than absolutely necessary on completing the survey?
Our experience with customer panels is that you do not need to pay a panellist anything. They like to help your company and like to be involved. By using Conversational Surveys, which simulate real conversations, you can make the survey process more engaging, encouraging panellists to provide more honest and detailed responses. This can be seen in the length of open answers, which are 85% longer than those from access panellists.
High quality engagement from your members
People who are in a customer panel take time to participate and are prepared to answer your questions. You can see this in the average time it takes them to complete a survey compared to access panellist. You do not see any straight liners (every question in a matrix gets the same answer) from your own customers and open answers are more elaborate. As discussed in our article “Building Trust among Respondents: The Role of Data Security and Privacy,” ensuring data security and privacy builds trust among respondents, leading to more accurate and reliable data.
What are the differences in costs?
If you regularly want to talk to your customers a customer panel is always the better option. It takes some time and effort to set up and you pay an annual fee for using panel management software, but the variable cost (cost per complete) is close to zero, since incentivizing customer panels is generally not necessary. Additionally, the Connect feature allows for seamless integration with third-party software, automating data transfer and streamlining workflows, which enhances the overall efficiency of your research process. With access panels, you pay per complete, so one advantage is that you have no fixed costs. So if you are only looking at the cost of your surveys, then you have to conduct surveys regularly to get a cost advantage from customer panels.
Which Research Panel has more flexibility?
Once the panellist has joined your panel you can ask your panellist what you want, when you want. However, what happens when you need speed for agile working? Ask your panellist if they are prepared to react within 4 hours and within your customer panel I am sure you will find a group of panellists who are willing. You need mystery shoppers or community members for a pop-up community? It is easy to recruit them from your panel. You have highly motivated panellists so there are always people who want to help. By using the WhatsApp Invite feature, you can send survey invitations via a popular messaging app, significantly boosting response rates and engaging respondents in a familiar and convenient way.
A Research Panel that allows you to engage
By having a private panel, your company shows that you are interested in the opinions and ideas of your consumers. People like to be engaged, so this is not only a way of getting insights but also a marketing tool. Using Conversational Surveys can make this engagement even deeper by providing a more interactive and human-like survey experience. This engagement shows that your company values customer input and is committed to a two-way conversation, making customers feel more connected and valued.
Never forget that a customer panel is not a national representative sample. People who joined your panel like your brand or want to contribute to your company. They are not representative of the whole population. So if you want to know what the whole population thinks then a customer panel is not suitable for that study.
Get started with a customer panel
To be a successful company you have to listen to your customers and know what is important to them. One of the best ways to do this is by starting a customer panel. At Crowdtech we have spent the last decade helping organisations improve customer satisfaction through customer panels. I have seen a lot of success stories in every industry sector and am happy to share them with you.
