The brief
When Royal Mail approached us, its commercial team had an existing database of customers to whom simple email surveys were being sent. However, low response rates and increasing demand for a more responsive research mechanism prompted them to take a fresh look at the situation.
We were asked to come up with a solution that would allow them to not only engage with customers quickly - but provide them with the flexibility to carry out both structured, quantitative and more dynamic, qualitative research.
It was also important that Royal Mail could build and develop customer relationships by encouraging dialogue and open discussion.
The approach
We developed a bespoke online research community to connect Royal Mail to 7,000 members recruited from its three key customer audiences (corporate, SMEs and personal customers).
We designed and built a website for the community, incorporating features synonymous with social networking sites such as LinkedIn and Facebook. The key aim was to encourage discussions and interaction through features such as blogs, discussion forums, live chat, news updates and profile management.
It was also important that the site was engaging and encouraged customers to sign-up and participate in regular research studies. Customers automatically entered into regular prize draws for taking part in surveys, participating in discussion forums and responding to weekly polls.
To maintain customer engagement outside of core research projects, we worked alongside Royal Mail to deploy a range of promotional activity including: regular newsletters, a charity donation scheme to Barnados, and feedback from Royal Mail on how customer feedback is used internally.
The result
The feedback cycle for research is much shorter. Royal Mail and Brass can now design, field and analyse surveys and online discussion forums in three working days.
The Opinion Forum has had a dramatic impact on the way research is seen and used within Royal Mail. Crucially it offers ROI, outperforming the equivalent face-to-face / ad-hoc research by a factor of 2:1.
Panel membership is growing and 2011 will see a series of live webchats with key Royal Mail staff about the future of the business.
The innovative approach taken was a key reason for the project winning an MRS/BIG award in 2010, with the judges commenting "a welcome, robust and informative application of online research in the B2B environment".