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The Marketing, Product, and Insights teams working for a large, leading U.S. commercial bank wanted to better understand their small business owner customers so they could design products and services that truly meet their needs and ultimately attract more small businesses to choose the bank as their financial partner. But reaching this audience was slow and costly, so they invested in building an online community of 400 small business owners, giving them a powerful new way to learn directly from SBO customers and prospects. The opportunity was significant, but the team quickly faced a new challenge: they did not have the internal staff or specialized research expertise to manage the new community. They needed a fractional, flexible insights expert who could unlock the full value of the community by quickly stepping in, designing meaningful research, engaging busy small business owners, and translating the resulting feedback into strategic insights for the company.
The banking team turned to SIVO On Demand Talent, who matched them with Senior Insights Consultant. This senior market research professional stepped in as the strategic research lead for the community, designing studies, writing surveys and discussion guides tailored to busy small business owners, programming and fielding activities, and synthesizing findings into clear, actionable recommendations for product, CX, and marketing teams. Drawing on deep community and market research experience, she effectively combined the roles of insights director, manager, and associate, ensuring every activity was both engaging for participants and tightly aligned to business objectives. What began as a three-month engagement has now evolved into a multi-year strategic partnership.
The impact of this work was twofold:
First, the online community quickly became the fast, flexible research engine that the banking team had envisioned. Instead of starting from scratch with each question, stakeholders could tap into a well‑managed panel of small business owners and get insights in days rather than weeks. Her thoughtful designs and moderation kept participation high and feedback rich, making the community the go‑to source for testing ideas, refining messaging, and understanding real‑world experiences with the bank’s products and services.
Second, as confidence in the insights grew, her role expanded from fractional community researcher to strategic advisor. Her influence has shown up in tangible outcomes. For example, she helped the team evolve to proactively keeping a pulse on small business needs, launching a quarterly tracking survey to show how the economy is affecting owners, and leading monthly stakeholder insights share‑outs to the product and marketing teams. In parallel, she has been guiding the integration of AI‑driven research capabilities into the banks research processes and training teams on how to use them, further elevating the sophistication, speed, and strategic value of the bank’s Insights function.
“I love bringing the voice and perspective of Small Business Owners to the bank’s product teams as they evolve their product offerings for this cohort.”
- SIVO On Demand Talent Professional
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