With more than 7 million individual investor accounts and $1 trillion in client assets, Charles Schwab Corp.is determined to keep its customers. In addition to conventional customer research, Jonathan Craig, a Schwab vice president from the marketing department, and Jim Hawn, a vice president from the retail brokerage business department, wanted to find new ways to develop a direct channel to their customers.

Beginning in 2004 Craig and Hawn used Communispace to recruit company members and create a community with the firm's active traders and affluent investor group. Each week Schwab updates the site with new activities including customer surveys, discussion board topics and Web chats to encourage dialogue among community members, as well as with employees.

Starting out with an initial community of 400 interested clients, Schwab gathers valuable customer insight, and uses it to focus on clients' investing habits and market outlook. For instance, one big motivator in launching the first community was to determine Schwab's core clients' price sensitivity around commissions and the extent to which that was a factor in driving loyalty and retention. Schwab also sought out clients who also had relationships with its competitors. The goal was to learn about how customer experiences differ at different brokerage firms.

In addition, Charles Schwab himself became involved in a set of online customer interactions. Clients literally wrote essays to him about what they liked and what needed improvement. "[Clients] know their ideas and suggestions are being closely scrutinized, that they are being listened to, and that what they are saying is being considered by Schwab management up to and including the chairman," Hawn says.

Note: Stepping Stone Partners worked with Communispace on the Schwab Online Customer Community.