Online-Community - SGI CONNECT
In early 2014, Saskatchewan Government Insurance (SGI) and SGI Canada (the for-profit division that sells a range of home, agri, business and auto extension insurance products in Saskatchewan and other markets in Canada) was looking for a solution to bring themselves closer to their brokers and customers.
The key focus for SGI Canada was to initiate conversations and learn about priority issues to address with SGI products and services.
SGI investigated and came up with the idea of creating a dedicated online community, which came to be called SGI CONNECT. Market Research Online Communities (MROC’s) were recognized as a powerful tool for capturing the customer experience with companies’ products and services and for taking a more continuous snapshot of consumers in their everyday lives.
MROC’s, such as those Insightrix has developed, also allow companies to have a more longitudinal and interactive relationship with their customers during the research process. The result is that communities help deeply understand target audiences’ experiences and their unmet needs, potentially leading to new marketing opportunities.
Keeping these objectives in mind, Insightrix created a MROC with SGI customers, as well as brokers who represent SGI products and services to customers.
To create a more flexible tool for measuring customer experience, Insightrix developed the community to ensure interactions with customers and brokers were kept separate within the same community platform.
Working as partners during the recruitment process, Insightrix and SGI recruited more than 1,000 active members.
Insightrix used various recruitment methods, including flyers, posters in SGI locations, mail outs with email addresses provided by SGI and a booth at broker conferences. In addition, mobile and online advertisements were also employed. Insightrix monitored community members’ preference to participate in the panel, such as participating in surveys through the online community, providing a survey link sent directly to their inbox, participating in discussion groups, etc. Based on these preferences, Insightrix provided SGI CONNECT members the flexibility to allow them to participate in their preferred way.
To begin the process, a wide range of topics were introduced from which SGI was hoping to learn more by hearing the viewpoints from community members on topics such as insurance services, new traffic rules, etc.
The platform opened up a new avenue for SGI to gather customer insights. Through the platform, SGI is able to easily conduct a series of research projects with its customers and gather deeper insights.
Although surveys are the primary focus, SGI CONNECT is able to give customers a voice beyond completing surveys. SGI is able to field a survey quickly and “test the waters” of potential customer service enhancements, such as offering vehicle registration services online, obtaining information on how likely customers are to use online registration and understanding potential barriers or drawbacks of offering this service. This information helps SGI determine whether further research is required.
SGI and Insightrix continue to work to develop the platform further by simplifying the interface, rules, filters and including engagement metrics in the back-end of the software. These improvements provide for an enhanced experience for both the community members and the community administrator, resulting in deeper customer engagement through SGI CONNECT.
“It is a great platform to concept test and confirm hypotheses with a quick turnaround. It helps with consecutive stages of research by acting as the strong first step.”
Jaime Garcia
Manager, Kundeneinblicke
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