I led market insights and customer experience measurement teams for Fortune 200 companies for 25 years. An insights community was an important part of my toolbox at each of these companies.
The insights communities (in the beginning we called them MROCs or Market Research Online Communities) enabled the delivery of fast insights with significant cost savings. These insights helped drive decisions for customer experience, marketing, product & service development, sales, communications, and more.
Since joining KLC, I’ve had the pleasure of working with many utility companies and learning how they use their KLC insights communities. Our utility clients use their communities much like other companies, but they are also able to use them in ways many companies cannot.
We run dozens of successful research projects for our utility clients each month. Here are 10 interesting ways they are using their communities to answer key business questions and drive better decisions:
- Customer Experience Tracking
- Customer Experience Improvement
- Ideation and Concept Development
- Communications and Ad Testing
- Customer Journey Map Development
- New Service and New Product Innovation
- Service and Product Satisfaction
- Website/App Development and Assessment
- Employee Experience Measurement
- Employee Engagement Ideation
This list is far from comprehensive, but it represents some common ways utilities are using insights communities to drive better experiences, better communications & marketing, and better product & service delivery.
The rich human insight that comes from community research helps drive better decisions in many parts of these organizations and our clients come from a variety of internal functions. We work with Market Research and Insights, Customer Experience or Customer Care, Communications and Marketing, Public Relations, HR, and Executive Leadership. Anyone who needs to better understand customers!
Insights communities can bring significant value to almost any firm, but utility companies can often realize even more value from a community that is well executed. Utilities often have access to and a relationship with their entire universe of customers and the vital nature of the services delivered means a naturally engaged customer base—ideal conditions for getting the most value from an insights community.