Wayke & Panelista

Date
January 4, 2020
Written by
Anders Palm

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Several new insights in just 72 hours!

We sent our first video question to 31 panelists. We asked them; "What is important to you when buying a car online?". In just 72 hours we had 18 answers and several new insights!

Wayke

Wayke is the marketplace for safely buying a car online in Sweden. They make life easier for car buyers, car sellers, and car dreamers. With Panelista, the Wayke Innovation panel was created to better understand customer needs and how to make online car purchases even safer.

We at Panelista interviewed Martin Fransson, CEO and Irma Markgren, who is responsible for the panel.

Why do you use Panelista?

Martin: To make Wayke an even safer and more guiding marketplace. To get where we want to be, we need to talk more with customers. Both to learn new things that can improve our product, and to help us understand our customers better. Panelista is a way for us to have a dialogue with customers in real-time and be able to dig deeper when needed.

Irma: We want to be consumer-driven. I want to get completely new insights that we have not thought of. Those light bulb moments. But it is also important to confirm that we are on the right track with things that we have already planned for.

How is it going?

Irma: Great! When you find the right people who want to contribute this way, it works really well. I had early concerns about bothering the panelists, but it does not feel that way at all, and some have answered every single question. I have so many questions, and will probably never stop asking!

Martin: It’s hard to engage people today, so we got faster and greater customer engagement than I dared to hope for. Also, everyone in our team saw the benefits of using Panelista and the way of working very quickly.

Irma: We have already added several things to our backlog as a direct result of using Panelista. Sometimes it has been things we have thought of before, but it became clearer how they should be designed.

Do you work with customer insights in any other way?

Irma: We also work with surveys. Getting a lot of answers is a benefit of surveys, and we will probably continue to supplement Panelista with surveys. Panelista feels much more personal though, and it is a lot of fun to have that direct customer contact.

Martin: Yes, even simple surveys can be incredibly rewarding. However, there is no interaction, and it becomes an administrative monster. We have also run live panels, and interviews that generated several features available on Wayke.se today. There is a chance that Panelista can outperform even live panels as some people are comfortable talking in front of a group and others are not. The involvement of the panelists, I suspect, has been so great because of the video format.

What has been the most difficult?

Martin: It’s about a bigger transition than just starting to use Panelista. It is about actually becoming customer-centric and understanding the customers better. It is far from obvious for companies to truly involve their customers, and a bigger change than one might think. It can change the whole way of thinking about the product, it can change the whole backlog. You have to really enjoy talking to the customers.

Irma: I can still find it a bit of a challenge to be in the video questions. With that said, I really wouldn’t want to replace the video format, as you get so much back!

What has been the best?

IrmaThere is very little effort involved to gain many new insights. We ask a question every other week, and it’s fun when the answers start rolling in.

Martin: All of a sudden, we can get real-time answers from panelists and ask follow-up questions. It is a magical thing when you can get a new idea and immediately check; Would our customers like this?

What is it like working with Panelista and the Panelista team?

Irma: Panelista works really well! Nothing to complain about. It feels simple and logical. Great that you quickly developed a new feature after my feedback. It was also very nice that you helped us get started, you made it happen right there and then. Otherwise, I would have postponed it a bit as I was nervous about recording the first video question.

Martin: Great product. Intuitive to work with. Keep it this simple! Your commitment is just the way we want it. You made sure we got started in the right way and continue to check-in frequently.

Thank you, Martin and Irma! Read more about Panelista here .