Banking Review

Online communities & innovation

For the past six months Suncorp has been growing and nurturing an online community with the help of research house, Colmar Brunton. The Suncorp online community operates with a closed membership of around 300 current and potential Suncorp customers.

“The online community has been fundamental in shifting from a one-way communication that focus groups provide to a two-way conversation with customers,” Natalie Choules, Senior Advisor Insights & Analysis told Online Banking Review.

“While it’s still early days we have a rapport with our community that allows Suncorp to get a greater understanding of what customers think, want and need. It also allows us to observe and begin to understand not just the unmet needs but the unarticulated ones,” Choules continues.

The community consists of Suncorp and non-Suncorp customers with geographic spread across Queensland, New South Wales, and the strategically important Western Australian market. The community is designed to represent the core segments that Suncorp services and wishes to reach.

While the community is operated out of the Suncorp Group Marketing team, it is viewed as a group asset and as such all areas of the organisation including wealth, insurance and banking have access to the community.

“As an organisation we are particularly mindful not to ‘over mine’ the community yet still engage everyone in the business as a whole. Not only do we start conversations about potential products, services and other ideas Suncorp keeps the community informed. Any announcements made to the public and market is also made directly to the community to ensure that all members feel actively involved with the Group operations,” explains Choules.

The online community has been well received across the Group, with all areas of the business from internal communication, public affairs, distribution, product development and marketing being actively involved in conversations with community members.

Using the online community has been a conscience decision to change the way Suncorp engages with customers. Traditional market research is still used but the online community has provided a new layer of information and insight. Starting a conversation with the community allow for real-time feedback about a burgeoning idea; the essence of ‘quick prototyping’ that is essential to innovation.

The quick turn around and immediate response from community members dramatically reduces the cost and turn-around time to test ideas. “Traditionally if market research was done on an idea it might take six weeks to get a focus group together, gather the information and interpret the response. Now we can have feedback in real time. We know immediately how customers feel about a concept plus their ideas and responses can be instantly incorporated.”

In the Suncorp community, members are not incentivised to participate. Each community members choose how much or how little to engage with the questions and conversations taking place.

Suncorp is amongst the first of many organisations that are using online communities to become closer to their customers. The Buzz insurance was built from the ground up based on the feedback and ideas generated from the online community, MyInsuranceIdeas.

Tom Key, Senior Consultant at 2nd Road told Online Banking Review, “Real customer insights can be discovered online. The real time nature of online allows for effective rapid feedback and prototyping.”

The Woolworths Everyday Rewards program is another example of online community driven product development. More on the Woolworths experience later in the week.

As more companies move to use online communities, will customer engagement with brands increase? Will customers align with brands they have an existing affinity with? Will ‘online community’ fatigue impact the effectiveness?