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Customer online panel

When is this method appropriate?

Customer online panels are especially qualified for a regular test of your online-shops as well as complete order and fulfilment processes.

Your customers, or rather, the desired target-groups regularly order products on your website.

Afterwards the customers explain their personal experiences in relation to the order process, shop usage, acceptance of orders or return processes. In addition, the customers show potentials for improvement.

Customer online panels combine longitudinal and cross section analyses. They record the experiences of customers over a long period and give concrete insights into the history of the complete order and fulfilment process.

Possible questions:

Are the existing interaction processes on your website comprehensible and are their elements intuitively operated for instance during an order process?
What usage parts or customer experiences have the strongest influences on the customer satisfaction?
Can your online-shop reach the intended goal-settings for example in relation to:
- Shop orders like product search, order process?
- Self services for instance my account, delivery information, order history?
- Inter alia delivery, order acceptance, packing, billing?
- Return management?
- Customer satisfaction and customer care?
How much effort is needed to solve the identified weaknesses in the order and fulfilment process?
Have the optimisations and changes in the order and fulfilment process led to more customer satisfaction?
What usability problems lead to concise dissatisfaction of the product order?

And many more…

In what project phase applicable?

Programming/implementation (beta phase)
Before your website goes online customer online panels can be created and used for the optimisation of the shop and the order process. So it is possible to identify weaknesses and problems in the early development phase.
Live activity/usage
If the website is already online, customer online panels can be created and used at any time. Hereby online customers are involved in checking the complete order process as soon as possible for instance due to real, monthly orders. Therewith they can implement continual quality controls of the complete order process, from the product search, to the order to the return process and additionally identify weak points or problems in the order/fulfilment process very soon.

What is the procedure of this method?

Determination of the panel structure, procedure and timeframe of the customer panel

You tell us the features of your target-group, or rather, customers as well as possible questions that touch the complete order process and fulfilment process.

Together with you we define a determined group of panel members. From our online-access-panel Bonopolis.de (mehr als 60.000 German-speaking registered web users, from November 2008)we can chose appropriate people. But you are also able to chose members from your own customer file.

The timeframe of the customer panel is determined in consultation with you. To make comparative ratings (longitudinal section analysis) after improvements or changes of the shop or the order and fulfilment process, the activity of a customer panel should extend to at least 12 months.

Panel maintenance & submission of usage and purchase reports

The members of the customer panel order at least once a month products.

In a clear defined time schedule we determine when the panel member is supposed to do a real order or when the panel member if necessary should make for instance an order of critical products or orders with return dispatch.

The members record in terms of so-called usage and purchase reports their experiences during the order process via an online diary (a kind of weblog).

The online diary contains fix topic blocks that contain statements referring to central topics/aspects around the online-shop (like assortment, shop design, purchase incitements, usability, etc.) and the order and fulfilment process.

The topic blocks contains both open questions - here the members can freely report about their experiences (diary) and closed questions – here the members give ratings on the base of scales.

Rating of the back note in different dimensions (here: clearness)

Because customers regularly and freely report their experiences companies gain deep insights into the thoughts and emotions and, of course, into the usage behaviours of your customers. This is more likely to fulfil than in standardised, quantitative surveys.

The panel maintenance takes place by an experienced panel manager. She is on the hand for problems and questions of the panel members. In addition, she checks the quality and number of usage and purchase reports. Furthermore, the panel manager controls the order process (from the order to the delivery of the product) and the payment of the expense allowance in terms of credit items on the panel member’s account.

Strengths of this method:

Continual suggestions and valuable ideas for the optimisation of the shops as well as of the order/and fulfilment process.
Fast showing of concrete weaknesses and problems that exist in certain usage situations/sectors in the complete order process.
Continual, monthly usage and purchase reports.
Comparative quality control by use of longitudinal section analyses after improvements or changes in the order process is possible.
Clear data preparation and pointing out of first guidance.
High data quality due to comprehensive panel maintenance.

What about the sample size?

The sample strongly varies according to the complexity of the test object and the goal-settings. Generally one can say that about 15 to 30 people are advisable for each target/customer group.

How much time takes the implementation?

A customer panel should be conducted for more than one year so that findings that result from the optimisation of problem fields can be considered for the rating and success control.

What input do you have to provide?

Optimally you come to our premises with concrete questions that we can implement in the survey master of the attendees. We would also like to work out with you this kind of questions.

What do you receive from us?

You receive an interpretative result report with the following contents:

Management summary
Detailed illustration of the results from usage and purchase reports of the panel members’ orders.
First categorisation of the seriousness of the identified problems in the order and fulfilment process.
Concrete guidance and optimisation recommendations.
Longitudinal section interpretation after optimisations or changes in identified problem fields in the order and fulfilment process.
Online reporting: possibility to have a look at to date ascertained data already during the submission of usage and purchase reports.