Continuing Research Community PostNL

An important target group for PostNL is the small business market. A fairly anonymous target group, which is difficult to get in touch with. In order to better respond to the wishes and needs of the small-business customer, it was necessary to change this and get communication going.

Research goal: continuous visibility into the small business customer

In order to continue serving small business customers as well as possible now and in the future, PostNL has defined a number of improvement initiatives. To ensure that these initiatives have the desired effect, it is very important to involve the customer in their development and rollout.

An Online Research Community is the way to get a better picture of the small business customer's environment. A flexible measurement tool that generates input at times when internal agile teams need it.

‍

Online Research Community

The benefits of this type of online market research:

• Ask questions at any time - an online platform allows you to submit questions to respondents at the time the customer needs input on a particular topic. You get concrete responses to questions you have and can discuss them.
• Spontaneous conversations - a community provides extensive opportunities for people to engage in conversation among themselves as well.
• Engagement - As mentioned, some audiences are difficult to reach. Research communities provide high participant engagement.
• Methods - In this approach, you can generate both qualitative and quantitative inputs. And the issues can also vary in size. For each issue, the most appropriate approach is considered.

On/off design for optimal flexibility

Because there are multiple improvement processes and therefore multiple issues from PostNL, a continuous online research community was chosen. This is turned 'on' at any time that insights are needed. This allows PostNL to be in continuous contact with their current and potential small business customers.

This way of working is ideal for companies that work agile like PostNL. They could go into the community for different issues to get a feel for the small business owner. A very approachable way to get in touch with your customer and it helped them gather customer input and review all the steps in the development of the various improvement projects.

Research approach to an online community

1. Kick off

In the kick-off, the research design is thoroughly reviewed with all those involved. This ensures that the involvement in the community is greater than just the researchers we work with.

2. Build community platform

Our communities can be built within 1-2 weeks. Every community we build is custom designed and the design matches the small business owner and fits PostNL. So an online environment in which the respondent feels comfortable.

3. Recruitment participants community

In this case, we recruit B2B respondents for the online platform. We recruit engaged community members so that the online platform is a successful source of information for our clients. To do this, we follow a number of principles:

• We make it clear to participants "What's in it for them? In addition to a financial reward, participants also receive a reward in the form of knowledge. We also discuss issues that are especially interesting to entrepreneurs and that PostNL can also learn something from.
• We invite the 'right people' (contributors & creators)
• We consistently implement the 6F model. That way, community members are other entrepreneurs who understand what you're up against.

4. Issues

PostNL has a number of issues to explore on various topics. The process for these issues has a set approach:

• We start with an intake. Based on a briefing, Blauw translates this into a series of activities for the community. This could be a questionnaire, or a series of forum topics, journal assignments, etc.
• Blauw devises a research design for each issue. In consultation with Blauw, PostNL decides which approach and which period will be chosen.
• After coordination, activities are opened up in the community. Blauw moderates the activities and makes adjustments where necessary. Stakeholders can watch, but we also keep them informed of progress.
• We then analyze the collected information and feed it back in a concise report to PostNL as well as to the community members themselves.