Community Panels
A Lake market community panel is composed of a sample of consumers recruited to give their views and opinions of a specific market such as banking, mobile phones, DIY stores etc.
Panellists are recruited at random using CAPI, CATI or the internet and are asked to participate in a research project to look at a particular market on an ongoing basis. They can also be recruited from client company customer record where they exist and are available.
The normal method of interviewing is by the internet; although to be fully representative interviewing can also be carried out amongst those not web enabled using CATI, CAPI or post methods. The results of the research are held on an expanding database to allow the longitudinal analysis of data. Data can also be added by client companies. Respondent account data or segmentation codes can be added to enhance the data collected during ongoing research projects. Obviously this data would only be used for work with the client company that provided the data.
Market panels are either set up by Lake either as a general purpose research vehicle or one set up for a particular client.
An example of a panel designed for a client in the financial market would start with the recruitment by Lake of customers of that client or by using the client customer database. As described above, this would take place mainly using CAPI or CATI to ensure that the panel was representative of all customer types. This customer panel would be augmented by other market segments according to client objectives. Obvious examples of these segments might be ex customers, competitor’s customers or specific market groups that the client company is focused on converting. In most instances, representatives of all market segments would be included to allow weighted total market data to be produced.
Small targeted groups or panels within the main panel can be used for qualitative research including online focus groups and monitored blogs. These types of panel are particularly useful for:
Rapid response cost effective research
The regular monitoring of opinion as a continuous process rather than waiting for large and costly ad hoc projects to be completed.
Longitudinal research to track life time customer value.
Quick response reports for topical issues or as a sounding board for senior execs
Opinion leader and early adopter analysis
Lake would recruit and manage the panel for the client and conduct the surveys. However, the custom panels can also be set up to allow clients to carry out there own surveys using the Lake systems.
The size of the panel would depend on the objectives but a typical panel for a high street bank might total 3000 panellists of which 1000 are bank customers, 1000 competitor customers and 1000 split into 5 segments of 200 composed of key market groups.
Panels can also be set up that are only composed of client company customers. Where the respondents are provided by the client company, costs can be considerably reduced although the potential areas for research are obviously limited.
Normally respondents are incentivised to respond to surveys. It is possible, especially amongst panels composed solely of customers, to carry out surveys that do not need incentivising because the respondent is happy to be part of the brand ‘community’. However, the danger is that these panels can quickly become unrepresentative and therefore unreliable.
Obviously this can be a danger for any panel operation so as part of the panel management; Lake would run key questions on our nationally representative CAPI survey to check on panel degradation.
