Welcome to your one-stop research spot…
When you create your community on the PluggedIN Platform, you’re giving your company a way to quickly and easily answer many (if not all) of your company’s questions in a single place. Use your community to:
- Develop and refine ideas for new products and services
- Get a better sense of the day-to-day customer experience
- Better understand your customers and their needs (and much more…)
Get started with a community demo today, and you’ll see for yourself how powerful an online research community can be, especially with our software and services supporting you the whole way.
-
Easy to use for all audiencesThe platform is designed to be easy to use for people of all ages. If you can use Facebook or LinkedIN, you can use this platform (in fact, some say it’s easier to use than many social sites). As a researcher, it’s also easy to moderate or observe your community. Even if you’ve never done online research before, you’ll figure this out quickly (and if you can’t, we’re always here to help!).
-
The research features you needThis isn’t some “off the shelf” community platform. The PluggedIN Platform was designed by market researchers to deliver the kind of features and experience that researchers need to do their jobs well. From unbiased and interview-style question modes to segment targeting capabilities, it has the back-end features that you will need to run a highly engaging and effective market research online community.
-
Engaging and socialWhile the platform is a very powerful research tool, we didn’t want it to feel like a market research platform to participants. Instead, we designed it to feel like a highly vibrant and engaging social experience that mirrors sites like Facebook or Twitter. The result is the kind of “across the table” conversation that will help you develop deep insights by continuously listening to your customers.
-
Keeps you “plugged in”MROCs are as much about engaging customers in a dialogue as they are about engaging you in a dialogue around customer insights. The platform includes an experience designed to engaged clients and research teams around what is happening in the community. Share topics to explore, submit ideas, view popular topics, upload the latest reports (and more) in your own private “backroom” area of your community. It’s all designed to help you stay truly plugged in to the voice of your customer.
Feature List:
-
Unaided questionsUnaided question modes ensure that you can get an unbiased read on what people think about your advertisement, product concept, etc. They are also handy for helping to reduce the “group think” that can sometimes occur in a research setting (either online or offline).
-
Interview-style questionsInterview-style questions are ideal for sensitive topics, or topics where you don’t want participants to see each others’ responses. They allow the moderator to see how people have responded (and probe), while participants cannot see replies.
-
Points incentive systemA highly configurable points system gives you tons of ways to encourage participation in your community. Assign points to just about anything members can do. The site tells you when people need to be paid, saving you time and money.
-
Social media integrationFeeds of what your community members are doing can be automatically pulled in from various social media sites (with the participant’s permission, of course!). This will help you see what they are saying and doing beyond what they share in your community.
-
Community news feedA community-wide news feed helps keep members and moderators plugged in to what is happening across the community at any given time. Members can comment on and “like” content, and moderators can award points for valuable contributions.
-
Easy replies systemIf you’ve moderated an online focus group, you know how it goes… You probe on a response, but the member doesn’t follow-up. The platform’s replies system makes it easier for participants to follow-up, so you actually get answers to your probes.
-
Surveys & pollsLaunch short surveys and polls to your entire community or a sub-set of members. With 10 question types, from rating and ranking to multiple choice and single choice, you’ll have more than enough to get a quick read of what your community is thinking.
-
Private user listsSometimes you don’t want an activity to go to everyone in the community. User lists give you the ability to target subsets of your community for activities, based on screening attributes you’ve defined.
-
Real-time chatTalk one-on-one or in groups with your community members in real-time, in a way that is similar to how Facebook chat works. Invite community members to log in at a specific time for private group chat sessions.
-
Third-party integrationAlready have a panel or community with another provider? No problem. Our platform plays nicely with other platforms… With our data importer you can take data from virtually any source and import it into your community in one click.
-
Client observersInvite people from around your company to observe what is going on in your community. They will have their own special role as an “observer,” and will be allowed to view what is going on, but not post anywhere on the site.
-
Threaded discussionsThe discussion topics in the community are threaded and indented, making it much easier to follow any side conversations that occur in the course of a discussion. In addition, it makes it easier for moderators to probe and follow-up.
-
Member to-do listWith so much happening in a community, it’s sometimes difficult to separate your important topics from the rest. To help with that, members are given a to-do list that includes topics that you would like them to respond to first.
-
Video responsesMembers are able to share videos they have created or discovered as a response to any of the questions you have posted. These video responses will help give you a better sense of who the members are in their own words.
-
Bulk member importerWhen you have a community of tens or hundreds of people, you don’t want to create and invite each of them one-by-one. The bulk member importer saves you tons of time, by importing members and their attributes all at once.
-
SSL securityProtecting your data (especially in a private online research community) is very important to us. That’s why we offer advanced SSL encryption on all of our communities. Check out our pricing page for more details.
-
Client-only “backroom”A client-only backroom gives your team a place to talk about what’s going on in your community, privately and without the participants seeing it. Think of it as your virtual focus group “backroom” (without the one-way mirror, of course)
-
Custom domainsDo you have a domain name you want your community to live at? We can accept custom domains for our Gold and Silver plans. If you don’t have a custom domain, your community will reside at a sub-domain of your choice.
-
White label optionsLooking to offer communities as a service? The community platform is available as a “white label” solution, meaning it is your branding throughout the site. However, there is a small “Powered by PluggedIN” logo and link on the footer.
-
Bulk emailerQuickly and easily send emails to your entire community or a subset of members, all from within the administration panel of your site. We’ve partnered with a third-party email service to ensure maximum deliverability of your emails.
-
Photo repliesPhoto uploads in response to discussions gives your members a way to tell you about their lives or emotions in new and novel ways. This feature is ideal for virtual ethnography studies, or when you want to run a projective exercise.
-
Customized brandingWhen you’re running a customer community, you’ll want your members to know it’s for your company. We’ll put your logo in the header and footer of the site, and change the sub-header color to match your company’s colors.
-
Instant transcript exportWith one click you can download the results from a discussion or survey to an Excel file, which you can use for additional analysis or share with your team. Transcript files include screening data, which can be customized based on your needs.
-
At-a-glance member infoModerators, researchers and community observers can instantly view participant screening data by clicking on a small “info” button next to a member’s profile. This saves time digging through screening data to find their attributes.
-
Private/public communitiesAlmost all market research online communities are private, but if for some reason you want a public community then our platform can handle it. Also, there is a “semi-private” mode where only people on the list can sign-up with a link.
-
Required attributesDid you miss a question in your screener? Need to collect demographic information after people have joined? Required attributes make it easy to do, by requiring people to answer additional screening questions prior to logging in.
-
Speedy translationsWe know that your customers span the globe, and are building the capabilities to cover your communities wherever you need. That’s why we built a fast platform translation process that allows for new languages within 1-2 weeks.