Community research as a tool for developing concepts and propositions
As an energy supplier in a highly competitive market, it is important to stand out and continue to innovate. ENGIE is all too aware of this and is constantly working on developing ideas into concrete products and propositions. In these development processes, it is sometimes difficult to determine which direction to take. Even more so: there is often insufficient insight into whether there is any need at all for the idea.
Challenge
It would help ENGIE enormously to get an overall impression of what is going on within the target group, without conducting a very extensive and therefore expensive survey. ENGIE also values the opinion of its (potential) customers and considers it important to involve them in its proposition development. For such issues, research via our community is an ideal solution.
Vision
What is community research?
With community research, we invite target consumers to a special online platform. We ask these people a variety of questions about a particular topic, gathering both qualitative and quantitative insights. Some of the issues ENGIE has used our community research for are:
- offering maintenance subscriptions
- encouraging sustainable behavior through combination propositions
- offering special discount deals.
Various issues thus, with the common thread being that there is a certain idea from within the company and through the community it is investigated how this idea can best be worked out.
Solution
From broad exploration to specific feedback on the idea
We work in the community with a so-called funnel approach. This means that you start very broadly with the issue and gradually work towards your specific ideas in a more concrete way. The first step is usually a broad inventory of the needs in the market, without presenting a specific idea or concept.
For the survey on maintenance subscriptions, for example, we started with a broad question about performing maintenance on the central heating boiler: to what extent are people doing this, when was the last time maintenance was performed and by whom? Why this party and not someone else? This introduces the subject to the respondent and gives ENGIE a good idea what their potential customer looks like, and how they look at boiler maintenance. The next step is to present your specific idea and see how they react in the market. This does not have to be a fully developed idea. Especially at this stage it pays to have only a rough sketch, which you can present and let your target group sharpen. What do they like about the idea, and what can be improved? For ENGIE, this is valuable feedback to further develop the idea into a concrete product.
Many different ways to gather insights
In addition to this funnel approach, versatility is another great benefit of the community. There are many ways to present issues to community members, which makes it a fun and diverse research method both for us, our clients, and the members.
Topics are the most common form of assignment, where we present a statement or question and participants are encouraged to answer it as comprehensively as possible. In the research on combination propositions, for example, we started with a general topic about all the renewable energy solutions people know about, and the motivation for investing or not investing in sustainability.
As a follow-up, a creative challenge was launched, inspiring people to share a photo with accompanying text illustrating their needs related to renewable energy. In the case of discount deals, on the other hand, the challenge began with people taking screenshots of discount deals in other sectors, with an explanation of why certain deals do or do not appeal. This serves as an introduction to the topic and gets respondents thinking about these types of deals. Then a topic asked what they think of discount deals in the energy sector, so that ENGIE could get an idea of how customers perceive this idea.
Ordinary questionnaires are also used in the community to quantify an idea or concept a bit more, so you also get (small-scale) quantitative data from all community members.
Result
Learning, learning, learning
Moreover, the beauty of research in a community is that it is an iterative process. From each step you learn something that you can take back into your next step. For example, in the research into combination propositions, the propositions presented were drawn up on the basis of the first insights from the research. This requires both Blauw and ENGIE to change gear quickly, and good and intensive customer contact is therefore a requirement for ensuring that needs and proposition research via the community runs smoothly. Fortunately, we have experienced community managers with years of experience in setting up and executing communities to ensure that the entire process runs as smoothly as possible.
Further-developing propositions
ENGIE can use the insights from the community to further develop their propositions. Once fully developed propositions are worked out, they can then be tested on a large scale in a quantitative way to see which concepts actually have the most potential. This way, complete research, from needs to concept, can be done in a cost-efficient and insightful way.
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