These days, it is more important than ever to listen to what the customer is saying. With tools such as Facebook and Twitter at everyone’s fingertips, one story of bad customer experience can spread like wildfire across the Internet, irreparably damaging a company’s reputation. One of the best ways for companies to combat this is to make sure they hear what their customers have to say. One of the most effective ways to do this, according to KL Communications, Inc., a Red-Bank, NJ based marketing research firm, is to create collaborative online communities where consumers can communicate directly with representatives of their favorite brands as well as with others who share a similar interest.
To help facilitate this co-collaboration between consumers and the companies they love, KL Communications has launched an innovative, proprietary community platform where consumers can actively offer insights and feedback on their favorite products and services.
The platform is part of the company’s IC2 TM initiative – “Insights Communities 2” – which enables researchers to employ new and traditional research methods to “see what lies ahead”. The company developed the platform from the ground up in order to better serve client and community member needs.
“The old platforms were limiting us in numerous ways,” Kevin Lonnie, President and CEO of KL Communications, stated. “We needed something not only ideal for ourselves and our clients, but for community members too. So we decided to build it ourselves.”
According to Lonnie, the IC2 community platform is user friendly, easy to navigate, and has a clean, intuitive look and feel. It enables KL Communications to provide even better insights to clients than before, while at the same time ensuring a top notch member experience. Perhaps most importantly, the platform takes a holistic approach to the process of gaining research insights, specifically aimed at generating new ideas that drive innovation.
“Our clients now have more actionable insights – they can get more information than ever before,” Lonnie continued. “But insight is not only about data collection, it’s about taking the next step of where data should take a company. Our clients work together with us and with the community members to gather robust, invaluable insights about their products and services.”
Each community has a set of customizable features. In addition, clients will be able to view results in real time through the Client Information Center. This allows for better researching as it is happening – not after a project is already completed.
“Clients can monitor the health of the community at any time,” explained Laura Penrose, Client Services Manager. “Then they can interact with us on a deeper level about what community members are saying and what can be improved.”
“Among other things, a deeper level of research means that specific demographic subgroups can be targeted within a community,” Penrose added. “This is great not only for the client, but allows community members to have a more personalized experience. They can respond to surveys and discussion questions that are tailored specifically to their interests and needs, and through these activities provide invaluable feedback to the client.”
The platform further puts members in the driver’s seat by allowing them to post photos, videos, and keep detailed daily journals. Members can also make suggestions in the community Suggestion Box and start their own topics for discussion within the forums. They can even send messages to site moderators and other community members if they have questions or want to interact outside of the discussion boards.
KL Communications is a full-service market research firm that focuses on building and managing proprietary insights communities and panels for a wide range of industries. By developing customized solutions that incorporate social media, crowdsourcing, insights communities & panels, as well as traditional research methods, KLC provides partners with the tools and insights to keep them a step ahead of the competition.
