Trends in the Financial Services Industry | Market Research

We all know how much technology has grown in the past decade or so, and how it continues to grow exponentially.  Particularly in the past few years, technology has played a larger role in our day-to-day life as businesses find more uses for internet and mobile applications. These technologies provide many opportunities for businesses that are quick to adapt, but also can be quite burdensome as the number of channels in which they connect to their audience continue to grow.

One great example of these changes is with the financial industry.  Convenience has always played a big role in the service provided by banks and credit unions.  From telephone banking, to internet banking, to mobile banking, banks and credit unions have expanded the way their members and customers manage their bank accounts and other financial services (and also created additional factors that constitute as ‘convenience’ aside from hours and locations).  New and remarkable technologies (see: mobile check scanning) are being added everyday to make banking more convenient.

While these innovative channels are becoming more utilized for banking, it raises many questions for financial institutions:

• What do our customers/members want? 
• Where do we allocate our resources? 
• How will these new technologies affect our current customers? And so on.

These questions that are raised are important and should be asked through market research in order to determine future strategic directions for the financial institution.  The answers to these questions will help financial institutions adapt to these trends appropriately.  Jumping too quickly may cause other unforeseen issues – and research needs to be done to mitigate or correct these issues.  One example of an unforeseen issue might be that certain audiences take offense at the marketing and push of these new channels – and assume that the financial institution doesn’t want to deal with them face to face anymore (and would rather have them handle their banking without the help of an in-person representative.)  Another example along these lines is the increasing importance of every single customer service experience.  Customer and member in-person interactions grow fewer and fewer at individual branch locations due to the adoption of internet and mobile banking channels.

Utilizing market research services is a great way for financial institutions (or any other business adapting to trends) to have a candid conversation with their customers.  Insights provided by research will help financial institutions tackle issues preemptively.  Learning just one new strategy from the market research on how to market a new product differently can make all the difference and pay for the research itself.  How is that for ROI?

If you are interested in learning more about how your business can adapt to new trends, contact our Business Development Director, Sandy Baker at 315-635-9802, or email her at SandyB@RMSresults.com.

2012 Healthcare Trends | Practice Transformation Services Consultant

RMS Healthcare has been promoting development of the primary care patient centered medical home (PCMH) and clinical integration of healthcare for the past several years. Healthcare delivery is currently undergoing significant transformation in hopes of improving quality and efficiency. Several activities are underway to help practices optimize healthcare through efficient operations. All indications are practices will continue to take the initiative in re-tooling their practice operations.

Here are some key excerpts of trends (according to a recent article written by Mr. Steve Schelhammer, CEO for Phytel, a data and technology corporation providing tools to physicians to  assist with patient population management):

• More and more providers will focus on the PCMH, which can produce short-term financial and clinical benefits while paving the way for the formation of Accountable Care Organizations (ACOs).

• As structured electronic data becomes the norm, many more providers will be able to tap clinical databases for real-time identification of care gaps, automated outreach to patients who need preventive and chronic care, care coordination, predictive modeling and risk stratification of the population.

• Efforts to promote patients’ engagement in their own care will benefit from the accelerating use of automation technology to replace outmoded, inefficient manual processes. In addition to automated patient outreach methods, online educational tools and health-risk assessments will become commonplace.

• Finally, care management will benefit from the new automation approaches. Healthcare systems are placing care  coordinators within physician practices, and those professionals are beginning to leverage digitized health data to help them manage patient populations.

If you are interested in talking about how RMS Healthcare can help you organization or practice, contact our Transformation Services Manager, Susan Maxsween at SusanM@RMSresults.com or by calling (315) 635-9802.  For more healthcare articles on the RMS Bunker Blog, click on the healthcare category selection on the right toolbar.

5 Tips for New Focus Group Moderators | Market Research

Good focus group moderators are not a dime a dozen.  The best ones have the keen ability to guide a group through different topics systematically yet thoroughly, all the while generating in-depth and exploratory feedback from participants.  It often takes years of practice to perfect, and focus group moderators constantly evolve their style and process to encourage more quality discussion and actionable findings for their company or client.  It’s not as easy as it looks. If you are watching focus groups and the moderator is making it look easy, it’s probably a credit to him or her rather than the process itself.  Those commissioning market research will often fly in moderators from all over the world to ensure they get great results, and as a result, the best moderators command a high rate.

Keeping all of this in mind, even the best focus group moderators had to start somewhere.  At one point, they all had their first group.  Many national or international companies can afford to send staff to training courses or seminars, which help train focus group moderators.  On the other hand, some more regional or smaller market research firms are forced to have select staff members learn on-the-fly due to budgetary constraints – through the infamous sink or float training method.  Whether you have taken some training classes or if you are just starting out in the moderating field, here are five tips for new focus group moderators:

1. Know your guide - seems almost too simple.  But don’t wait until last-minute to review the moderator’s guide, participation packets or session materials.  Studying these well-ahead of time will help you understand how one sections flows into the next and will make the groups run more seamlessly.  Also, it gives you the opportunity to truly understand the content and do some additional research or ask some questions to your client.  If something seems confusing to you, that will ultimately translate to confusion with participants, and you’ll want to know how to properly respond.

2. Don’t be afraid to step outside of the script - at the same time as knowing the step-by-step flow of the guide, there will be times in a focus group where participants bring up findings or information outside of the guide’s topics.  Don’t be discouraged from going off on mini-tangents to explore these findings.  Truth be told, it wouldn’t be market research if everyone knew the answers to everything.  Frequently, participants will discuss items that the guide did not prepare for.  Rather than ignoring them and sticking solely to the list, it may be worth your time exploring them.

3. Listen to participants - this may be the most important of the five tips I have listed here.  Too often a focus group moderator is concerned about how they will sound and how well they can direct the discussion.  Whereas in reality, all that a good focus group moderator should do is encourage the generation of discussion and dialogue between participants through questions.  Some of the most productive segments of a focus group are when participants interact back and forth between themselves and ask each other questions.  A moderator’s job is to simply encourage this dialogue, listen and steer topics.

4. Challenge their thoughts - one of the more popular criticisms of focus group research is that the participants “aim to please” the moderator and the sponsor.  Some groups are afraid to be too harsh or provide criticism of products or services being presented to them.  A good focus group moderator will play devil’s advocate and attempt to break through that surface feedback if necessary.  Sometimes participants just don’t offer up in-depth feedback on items, so you have to dig a little bit and explore.  To explore participants’ decision-making processes, you want to be skeptical, analytical and curious.

5. Relax - more so than anything else, just relax.  Put yourself in the mindset of: you are here to listen to these participants and collect their thoughts.  There might be 10+ client viewers in the backroom and a lot more viewing through FocusVision, but forget about the viewers and just focus on your group.  In focus group settings, you are the only analyst that matters.  You have to explore when you think it’s appropriate to explore and move on when you think it’s appropriate to move on.

If you are interested in using the QualiSight focus group facility in Syracuse, NY, contact our supervisor Lauren Krell at LaurenK@RMSresults.com or by calling 315-635-9802.  Research & Marketing Strategies (RMS) provides a full array of focus group services including recruitment, moderator guide design, focus group recruitment, facility rental and reporting/consulting.

RMS Healthcare Newsletter | Quality Care Courier Issue II

The second issue of the RMS Healthcare newsletter was just released this week, titled the Quality Care Courier.  You can review the first issue by clicking here.  This newsletter is put together by our healthcare team to keep the pulse of the healthcare industry for our clients, staff and other readers.  You can subscribe to receive mailed copies or emailed copies by clicking here and asking our staff to add you to the list!

This issue highlights the following articles:

• Clinical Integration is Here to Stay
• 2012 Healthcare Trends
• NY Medicaid to require Level 2 or Level 3 PCMH Recognition
• Disparities Report Highlights Healthcare Challenges
• Patient Engagement is a Must
• RMS Among Top 21 in USA
• Specialty Practice Recognition – The Next Step in Healthcare Transformation
• RMS Healthcare Adds Two New Team Members

If you are interested in finding out how RMS Healthcare can better help you, please contact our Practice Transformation Manager, Susan Maxsween at SusanM@RMSresults.com or call her at 315-635-9802.

Client Satisfaction Survey Results | RMS Healthcare

Yesterday’s blog post featured the RMS Analytics team’s survey results.  Today, we switch gears to highlight the Healthcare team’s results.  As was detailed yesterday, in 2012, Research & Marketing Strategies (RMS) retooled its client satisfaction survey to garner more actionable feedback from our clients.  At the end of each healthcare project/process, RMS mails out a client satisfaction survey to the client with a postage paid return envelope.  This RMS Healthcare survey is part of an organizational effort from all divisions to hear what our clients have to say.  Surveys are also done for the RMS Analytics team, the RMS QualiSight team (our focus group facility in Syracuse NY), and our Business Development team (a proposal-focused questionnaire).

These healthcare results are used to create a benchmark to continually track “how well we are doing.”  The RMS Healthcare team discusses findings from their recently returned surveys in our monthly full staff meetings.  Here are the year-to-date results for our client satisfaction surveys for the RMS Healthcare team:

Virtually perfect scores across the board.

If you are interested in talking about a healthcare research project with us, contact our Business Development Director, Sandy Baker at 315-635-9802, or email her at SandyB@RMSresults.com.  RMS has a practice transformation services division managed by Susan Maxsween.  If you are interested in NCQA recognition, please contact her at the same telephone number or at SusanM@RMSresults.com.

Client Satisfaction Survey Results | RMS Analytics

In 2012, Research & Marketing Strategies (RMS) retooled its client satisfaction survey to garner more actionable feedback from our clients.  At the end of each research project, a client satisfaction survey is mailed out with the final report and project CD.  The results are invaluable to our teams, and if no response is received, our President Mark Dengler follows up with each client and asks them to spend a few minutes filling out our survey and returning it to us.  RMS conducts client satisfaction surveys for the RMS Analytics team, the RMS Healthcare team, the RMS QualiSight team (our focus group facility in Syracuse NY), and we even send a proposal satisfaction survey out to our prospective clients who receive a proposal from our business development team.

The results are used to create a benchmark and continually track our clients’ satisfaction levels with our company.  We debrief on the findings from all received surveys on a monthly basis at our full staff meetings.  As a market research firm, we understand the importance of asking our clients for feedback.  It’s a great way to quantitatively track results and view progression of quality over time.

Here are the year-to-date results for our client satisfaction surveys for the RMS Analytics team:

Unaided, clients deemed RMS Analytics as “thorough.”

If you are interested in talking about a market research project with us, contact our Business Development Director, Sandy Baker at 315-635-9802, or email her at SandyB@RMSresults.com.  We take a lot of pride in exceeding our client expectations and I think our survey results prove that our efforts are paying off!

Social Media a Growing Presence in Health Care and Patient Care?

The article was written by guest blogger, Susan Maxsween, Manager, Healthcare Transformation Services Division.

As a healthcare consultant, I subscribe to many electronic venues to stay abreast of trends in healthcare and healthcare delivery.  Of late, I have noticed a great influx of articles and blog posts regarding the role and impact of social media in the health care arena.  As with any advances in technology and media, and, while all of this is good, some may challenge whether social media, medicine and patient care go hand-in-hand.  Further, some believe that social media is a fad and others believe that it offers no benefit to the physician and/or patient.

It goes without saying that social media reflects where healthcare is going and reflects a culture of change.  Social media will provide an opportunity for enhanced patient communication and self-responsibility through knowledge sharing, innovation and communication.

The reality is that as technology continues to advance, so do the patient demands.   Social media provides a venue for physicians and healthcare providers, from the broadest sense, an opportunity to showcase services and to demonstrate to patients that they are technologically savvy.

According to Don Sinko, Chief Integrity Officer with Cleveland Clinic, “one of the greatest risks of social media is ignoring social media.”  This is one situation of what you don’t know will hurt you. Social media can provide opportunities for people to promote services and while in other circumstances, to openly share issues/problems in an open forum.  Hence, physicians, hospitals and health care delivery systems need to be actively engaged in managing and tracking social media.

Social media, whether it is through Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Blogs or other venues, is having a tremendous impact on how patients promote and in essence, market services.  If a patient is happy with the care they received, this can provide a wonderful opportunity to promote a quality of care, and on the same note, if a patient experienced a bad encounter, this use of social media could cripple a given practice or care delivery system.  Patients are also using social media as an opportunity to share medical information, which can have a profound impact on decisions regarding care or ultimately, perhaps on a patient’s desire to achieve a second opinion.  According to Farris Timimi, M.D., medical director for the Mayo Clinic Center for Social Media, “Use of social media is not marketing.  It is the right thing to do.”

Customer experience, whether it is in retail or the healthcare arena is real and measurable, and can create customer loyalty and/or compromise it.  It is real and it is here and it must be acknowledged.  But, with sharing of personal experiences and asking of questions, it is paramount that HIPAA compliance remains at the forefront.  Patients, providers and healthcare delivery systems must be prudent in sharing of confidential information.  First and foremost, institutions, provider practices and healthcare delivery systems should have HIPAA policies in place to discuss the legal parameters with use of social media.  It is also critical that vendors with which you do business have clauses in their contracts that speak to adherence to HIPAA requirements.

What are your thoughts on how social media impacts health care and patient care?  Comment below.

Susan Maxsween can be reached at SusanM@RMSresults.com or by calling 315-635-9802.