Being able to both remove the pain of doing research and increase value to the business too. It sounds like we have been here before. Only we haven't, this is new and it's something businesses need to do.
What's New?
Consumers are harder to engage because they are mobile, tablet using and very busy people. They no longer sit down in front of a desktop PC screen and give it their full attention for an hour or two. They are multi-tasking in front of their TVs and making it hard for us to predict which device they will use and when.
Why Care?
Two challenges face businesses: The fast-changing landscape is creating an insatiable appetite for consumer knowledge but at the same time, it is harder to get the right customers to respond: customers find it harder to find the time to help and response rates are falling.
The Panel Solution
We need a thoroughly modern approach - a project panel. Panels are not new, but don't they say that the best ideas are often old ones reinvented? Having your own customer research panel allows your business deliver continuous incremental changes, ensuring everything is consumer-focused (think A/B testing, quick product feedback, help with a new product name etc). The panel needs to be set-up to deliver lots of quick, tactical feedback.
Speed and brevity is key to achieving this - for customers and stakeholders alike. And your business stakeholders will thank you too - lots of answers to their burning questions, helping them deliver that incremental change - without the need for big drawn out projects.
But your panel doesn't have to stop there. Your panel can also be a source for transformative change - either by combining all of that quick feedback to uncover new insight or by simultaneously delivering the bigger, more in-depth (and even longitudinal) strategic studies that can also help your business deliver new directions and market-leading innovation (think mobile diaries, in-depth one to ones, co-creation or prototype testing).
If a panel is set-up in the right way, with the right technology too, it can deliver a 'holy trinity' of benefits: incremental improvement, transformative change and better response rates.
