PostNL
Community Research for Logistics: PostNL Puts SME Customer Needs First
Case Information
A hard-to-reach target audience becomes more accessible when you can continuously engage with customers.
In 200 years, PostNL has grown from a postal delivery service to an all-round logistics provider. To better understand the needs of the often anonymous small business market, PostNL opted for flexible community research for logistics. This enables the organisation to actively involve customers in improvement processes and better align services with their needs.
Summary
PostNL sought a way to continuously gather feedback from small business customers. Therefore, the organisation chose an online research community with a flexible 'on/off' setup. This allows internal agile teams to collect targeted qualitative and quantitative feedback and use the insights directly to refine their service offerings.
The Question
How do you gain continuous insight into the small business customer?
PostNL now does much more than just deliver mail and parcels. The wishes of business and consumer customers are central to this.
For the small business market, PostNL wanted to improve communication and continuously map out needs. To achieve this, the organisation sought a flexible way to actively involve these customers.
This allowed PostNL to validate improvement processes based on direct customer input.
The Challenge
Engaging an anonymous and hard-to-reach target audience
The small business market is an important target audience for PostNL, but it is often anonymous at the same time.
This made it difficult to establish direct contact and respond effectively to specific needs. PostNL wanted to reduce this distance by actively involving customers in the development of improvement processes.
The Approach
Community Research for Logistics with a Flexible On/Off Setup
PostNL opted for a continuous online research community with an ‘on/off’ setup.
The flexible platform makes it possible to quickly and specifically gather feedback when internal agile teams need it.
PostNL can deploy various forms of research, ranging from qualitative discussions to quantitative questionnaires. This way, the community brings the small business customer closer and provides more insight into the world of this target audience.
<span data-metadata=""><span data-buffer="">The Result
Direct Customer Input for Service Offerings
Through the online research community, PostNL was able to directly present various issues to small business customers.
The collected insights were used directly to refine the service offerings. This provided PostNL with concrete customer input to further optimise its online services.
Consequence of the Result
Continuously Incorporating Customer Needs into Improvements
Faster feedback for agile teams.
Internal teams quickly receive concrete input from small business customers when they need it.
A better-aligned offering.
PostNL can more specifically tailor its services to the needs of small business customers.
Improved digital services.
The insights help PostNL to continuously optimise its digital services for entrepreneurs.
In practice.
Why did PostNL choose an online research community?
PostNL wanted to gain continuous insight into the needs of the often anonymous and hard-to-reach small business market.
How does PostNL's community research work?
The online research community has a flexible ‘on/off’ setup. This allows internal agile teams to collect targeted feedback when they need it.
What research does PostNL conduct through the community?
PostNL uses the community for various forms of research, ranging from qualitative discussions to quantitative questionnaires.
What does PostNL do with the insights from the community?
The collected insights are used to refine the service offerings and optimise services for entrepreneurs.
Want to know more?
Do you want to structurally involve your customers in the development of your services? Contact us. Then we’ll see how an online research community brings you closer to your target audience.
