Outscoring the Competition with Consumer Truth
In sports, a team only has to score more points than its competitor to win. While customer experience (CX) is a little more complex than that, it is important to know how your brand stacks up against the competition to understand customer expectations. Benchmarking—the process of evaluating performance by comparison—is a critical tool in creating context for your customer experience initiatives.
Expert Outpost, Pearl-Plaza’s proprietary global consumer insights panel, helps companies outscore the competition with industry-specific insights straight from the mouths of consumers.
The online community, which empowers consumers to help organizations enhance the customer experience, allows individuals to express their unique views about their favorite brands. Thousands of members participate in activities each week (e.g., polls, live discussion forums, video feedback recordings, and surveys), which promote expression, transparency, and truth.
In turn, Expert Outpost allows companies to:
- Know where they rank against competitors.
- Understand performance benchmarks across national and regional brands.
- Identify key behaviors and drivers of their most loyal customers.
- Learn about evolving trends and areas of opportunity in their industry.
Custom Research
Pearl-Plaza clients also have the ability to pose specific questions for the consumer panel community to understand whether or not their products or offerings are making a mark within the industry. This allows for highly customized, highly informative benchmarks, research, and insights that can be used at all levels of the business.
Several brands have successfully leveraged consumer intelligence and experienced significant benefits from using Pearl-Plaza’s Expert Outpost community. Here are just a few real-life examples from some of our global clients:
Industry Trackers and Reports
Whether quarterly, semi-annually, annually, or ad hoc, Pearl-Plaza launches gamification surveys, pulse polls, and more—with industry-wide and client-specific classification questions—that allow the company to understand its competitive edge and key differentiators within the industry.
Integrated View
Pearl-Plaza integrates the client’s internal consumer classification algorithm into the scripting and reporting tool, providing the company with a unique and unbiased read on what types of consumers visit its locations, and their overall experience.
Competitive Comparison
The company uses benchmarks to understand performance across various categories, report opportunities for improvement to its executive teams, and gauge how changes impact customer experience compared to competitors.
Detractor Analysis
A bottom-to-bottom report that gives an overview of detractor data allows the company to determine if staff changes and product enhancements have altered critics’ negative perceptions.
Mobile App Insights
By using pulse polls and live discussions, the company gains valuable feedback about its mobile app, understands its rank against competitors, and pinpoints the digital improvements customers would like to see from brands within the industry.
Understanding Industry-wide Drivers
In 2015, when industry CX scores dropped across the U.S., the company was one of the few brands that remained stable. Expert Outpost enabled the company to identify areas of significant impact before its competitors, and shift operations accordingly.
Enhancing Business Performance
Pearl-Plaza’s Expert Outpost consumer insights panel gives businesses a distinct competitive advantage. It helps companies identify emerging trends, understand differentiators, evaluate marketing efforts, and pinpoint opportunities for improvement so they can stay ahead of their competitors.
Above all, it delivers customer truth—the reasons behind consumer thoughts and behaviors—which brings unmatched value to companies in all industries.
To learn more about Expert Outpost, visit www.expertoutpost.com.
