--- title: How to Build Immersive Customer Panels and Communities description: Immersive customer panels and communities are great for generating high-quality data and insights, but how do insight teams build those immersive experiences? Learn now with some advice from a Lead UX Researcher, Ki Arnould Aguero. image: https://blog.flexmr.net/hubfs/Marketing_Files/Blogs/Headers/build-immersive-customer-panels-communities.png --- close ## Ready to level up your insights? Get ready to streamline, scale and supercharge your research. Fill out this form to request a demo of the InsightHub platform and discover the difference insights empowerment can make. A member of our team will reach out within two working days. close ## Cost effective insights that scale Quality insight doesn't need to cost the earth. Our flexible approach helps you make the most of research budgets and build an agile solution that works for you. 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[Listen Now](https://resources.flexmr.net/mrx-lab-podcast) - ### Featured Stories - [Specsavers Informs Key Marketing Decisions with InsightHub](https://resources.flexmr.net/specsavers) - [The Coventry Panel Helps Maintain Award Winning CX](https://resources.flexmr.net/coventry-building-society) - [Isagenix Customer Community Steers New Product Launch](https://resources.flexmr.net/isa-insights) - [Curo Engage Residents with InsightHub Community](https://resources.flexmr.net/curo) - [Practical Application](https://blog.flexmr.net/topic/practical-application) / 7 MIN READ ## How to Build Immersive Customer Panels and Communities #### Emily James # [Workshops and Beacons: A Guide to Building Custome...](https://blog.flexmr.net/workshops-beacons-customer-salience) Most organisations are not short of data, insight or decks.Their biggest challenge is not whether cu... [Read more](https://blog.flexmr.net/workshops-beacons-customer-salience) 9 MIN READ #### Ed Hill - [Events (1)](https://blog.flexmr.net/topic/events) - [Insights Empowerment (38)](https://blog.flexmr.net/topic/insights-empowerment) - [Practical Application (178)](https://blog.flexmr.net/topic/practical-application) - [Research Methods (285)](https://blog.flexmr.net/topic/research-methods) - [Strategic Thinking (232)](https://blog.flexmr.net/topic/strategic-thinking) - [Survey Templates (7)](https://blog.flexmr.net/topic/survey-templates) - [Tech & Trends (397)](https://blog.flexmr.net/topic/tech-trends) Customer panels and communities are two very popular research spaces for market research projects. Both are great ways for insight experts to communicate with respondents, segment them and distribute a variety of research tasks for respondents to take part in. Panels tend to be used more for quantitative research projects, distributing surveys easier than they conduct focus groups, while communities are a great space to collect continuous qualitative insights, but that isn’t to say that the panels can’t be good spaces for qualitative research and communities for quantitative insights. With the variety of research tasks and tools at the ready for insight teams to take advantage of, how can we be sure to create more engaging research experiences? Immersion is a great tactic for obtaining and maintaining respondent engagement in market research, but how do we create immersive experiences on customer panels and in communities? ## The Importance of Engagement and Role of Immersion We asked [Ki Arnould Aguero](https://www.linkedin.com/in/kiaguero/), a Lead UX Researcher at a Fortune 50 retailer, why is it important to create engaging customer research? What are the benefits to insight professionals? Ki responded that: “the primary reason for keeping a panel engaged is speed. We have teams all across the organization that are working in tight timelines. It’s still sort of amazing to me that they can launch a survey or post a poll question, and the next day we have several hundred responses. That lets them dig in and make their decisions and tackle the next customer question quickly.” | ![Tweet from FlexMR](https://blog.flexmr.net/hs-fs/hubfs/Website_Files/Images/Icons/tweet-flexmr.png?width=40&height=33&name=tweet-flexmr.png) | ***Tweet This*** | | --- | --- | | [With more respondents experiencing survey and research fatigue, researchers need to create more engaging, immersive research experiences to generate high quality insights.](https://ctt.ac/3x8eD) | | Ki’s mention of quick timelines and a need for quick insights is a common demand from stakeholders faced by insight teams across all industries, and with the speed of business becoming continuously faster, we have felt the need to try to keep up with this by providing insights also at the speed of business without sacrificing on quality. With this common goal, high-quality and continuous respondent engagement has become a top priority for insight experts.  Immersion is a great way to help obtain and maintain this quality respondent engagement in market research. Creating experiences that immerse respondents in fun, thought-provoking research in a secure environment that promotes safety will always help nurture candid conversations between researchers and respondents, and even between respondents in forum community pages. The latter carries on the immersive experience outside of scheduled research tasks that helps generate unexpected golden insights.  ## Maximising Engagement Through Immersive Experiences So how do we build immersive research experiences in panels and communities that maximise respondent engagement in market research? There are universal techniques that will work on both panels and communities, but also a few techniques that work strictly for quantitative vs. qualitative research. In research communities, respondents can log in whenever and wherever to complete research tasks, explore the latest discussions and chat with each other. Creating the right environment to promote open discussion the moment both inside and outside of scheduled research tasks, and transparency is one way to create that safe, secure research environment where respondents believe they can share even the most sensitive of data. Transparency surrounding data storing, processing, handling, etc. as well as sharing the technological security practices in place is a great place to start, and once they are convinced they will not hesitate to dive straight into the research. When talking about setting up customer panels to maximise engagement, Ki noted that “Something I always worry about is overwhelming panellists to the point that they dread getting an invitation to participate in a new activity. To keep my panel healthy, I limit our team to one invitation a week, and I also created guidelines for myself and other researchers to follow. The guidelines cover things like tone, timing, activity length (no more than 10 questions in a survey!), and more. It’s all about making sure that when an invite hits our panellists’ inbox, they’re happy to spend a few minutes of time with us.” Research tasks can inform forum discussions, but also vice versa. When respondents know they are being listened to and what they’re saying is making a difference to the brand’s customer experience they will automatically want to share more to mould the customer experience to something they will actively want to run through time and again.  ## Maintaining Engagement Lastly, once there are engagement tactics in place to maximise engagement, the onus is then placed on researchers to find ways to maintain that engagement. This can also be obtained through immersive experiences, maintaining immersion in research helps to keep respondents engaged in the next research task and project. | ![Tweet from FlexMR](https://blog.flexmr.net/hs-fs/hubfs/Website_Files/Images/Icons/tweet-flexmr.png?width=40&height=33&name=tweet-flexmr.png) | ***Tweet This*** | | --- | --- | | [Insight experts have created many tactics to increase respondent engagement, crafting immersive experiences are one of the most successful.](https://ctt.ac/D2OF6) | | Ki explores her own experiences with this goal, saying “in the last two years I’ve sent quarterly newsletters to our members. I highlight how many teams have benefited from their input, maybe share a finding or two, give them a teaser for what’s coming soon, and thank them for making our jobs easier. I even got some teammates to write out handwritten thank-you notes and take pictures of them, so they can see there are real people reviewing their feedback. We also recruit panellists for interviews sometimes, and I’ve noticed those folks are particularly faithful about contributing to activities after that – I’ve even had some open-ended comments that called me out by name! It’s all about making some human connections and building a good relationship.” Ki’s use of newsletters to close the feedback loop is a great way to enhance that air of transparency and create new forms of immersive experiences, as not only are the respondents involved in the research projects placed in front of them, but they also have a window into what is being done within the organisation that they are informing on the back of their data. This window will solidify the results of their efforts, make them more tangible and spark more interest and action when the next research task or project comes into being, as they will always want to see what happens next. [![Camp InsightHub](https://blog.flexmr.net/hs-fs/hubfs/Marketing_Files/CTAs/cta_camp_insighthub.png?width=1000&name=cta_camp_insighthub.png)](https://insighthub.flexmr.net/users/new) #### About FlexMR We are The Insights Empowerment Company. We help research, product and marketing teams drive informed decisions with efficient, scalable & impactful insight. #### About Emily James As a professional copywriter, Emily brings our global vision to life through a broad range of industry-leading content. #### Stay up to date ## You might also like... ![Blog Featured Image Header](https://blog.flexmr.net/hubfs/Marketing_Files/Blogs/Headers/pilot_studies_customer_connection.png) ### [How Pilot Studies Power Customer Co...](https://blog.flexmr.net/pilot-studies) The clue is in the name – a pilot study is essential in getting your research ‘off the ground’! A pilot study is a small-scale “trial run” conducted before launching the main research project. Its pur... [Continue reading](https://blog.flexmr.net/pilot-studies) 7 MIN READ ![Blog Featured Image Header](https://blog.flexmr.net/hubfs/Marketing_Files/Blogs/Headers/casual_conversation_iosetta_santini.png) ### [A Casual Conversation... with Ioset...](https://blog.flexmr.net/casual-conversation-iosetta-santini) Most research projects still currently end with a powerpoint report and a debrief. This has become deeply entrenched as the industry standard, and it is what stakeholders have come to expect when they... [Continue reading](https://blog.flexmr.net/casual-conversation-iosetta-santini) 4 MIN READ ![Blog Featured Image Header](https://blog.flexmr.net/hubfs/Marketing_Files/Blogs/Headers/challenge_customer_research_salience.png) ### [Using Customer Research to Reform R...](https://blog.flexmr.net/customer-research-reform-processes) Customer research is a concept all insight experts are familiar with, have to be familiar with to be good researchers in our industry. We understand that customer research is vital to informing succes... 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