Consumer segmentation research, quali / quant, social networking, word-of-mouth, customer relations, trend spotting & tracking…

An e-community is a large scale, longitudinal, online research community (sometimes termed a virtual community) or interactive panel. It is used for multiple concurrent research projects, direct marketing or customer relations initiatives, or if you need a permanent sample resource sufficient for both quantitative and qualitative research purposes. e-communities involve from 150 to upwards of 10,000 participants, and require permanent moderation and administrative support.

Although e-communities feature the same capability for interaction as e-councils (online consumer councils), unless the membership is broken down into sub-groups, as population increases, the ability to direct member activity towards collective, effective action decreases. For this reason nqual does not use the term ‘e-council’ to describe anything with a membership higher than 150.

Nevertheless, a well managed e-community with client involvement, and clear incentives to participate, still offers you considerable benefits, not achievable by any other means. Other than the absence of geographical / time constraints to client or member participation,an online research community or interactive panel is a continuous, rapid, low-cost, recruitment and feedback mechanism, unstructured onsite conversations enable you to identify and track trends, and frequently throw up unexpected insight. Explicit commitment and participation from the sponsor usually also results in significant positive word-of-mouth and CRM.

Although we do not offer hosted options, our tailored online community and interactive panel solutions can include some, all, or hybrids, of our real-time research tools and techniques, and moderation / summary reporting / support services, including online surveys, thus furnishing you with a genuine all purpose online research facility, and a perpetual stream of insight, available at your fingertips on an ongoing basis from anywhere in the world.