Case Studies
Medical Industry Association of Australia (MIAA)
Overview
The Medical Industry Association of Australia (MIAA) is the peak industry body representing the Australian medical device and diagnostics industry, with over 140 member companies.
Services
UltraFeedback worked with MIAA to understand the industry needs and developed a unique benchmarking research program for MIAA member companies. Now running in its sixth year, the MIAA Metrics Survey Program comprises two major Internet-enabled surveys per annum.
Outcome
The surveys are useful as benchmarks, to understand how MIAA member companies manage HR issues (Metrics People) and manage product-based issues (Metrics Products).
The participating companies regularly review the surveys and conduct results workshops to keep them as current and relevant as possible.
Medical device industry survey
Since 2002, UltraFeedback has managed an online quarterly quantitative benchmarking survey program called the MIAA Market Barometer Online Survey. This survey captures information to provide an overall market quantification a first in the medical device industry.
The MBOS survey captures product, channel and state sales trends across the top 20 member companies of the MIAA and provides a quarterly market extrapolation.
GPFeedback – service alignment study
Overview
UltraFeedback benchmarks 22 leading Australian pharmaceutical manufacturers and their service alignment with GPs. Achieving alignment of service with any customer group is critical - it is of vital importance in the highly competitive pharmaceutical industry.
Services
Since 2000
Worked with GPs to understand and benchmark the drivers of satisfaction in primary care, particularly in services provided by pharmaceutical manufacturers in Australia.
2001
Extensive interviews were conducted with senior Australian managers and GPs to develop a benchmarking measure of key service drivers.
2002
The pilot study first captured online input from over 650 Australian GPs, pharmaceutical sales managers and sales representatives in a three-way measurement of service alignment in primary care.
2003 onwards
GP practice managers were included; and in 2005, GPFeedback added consumer perceptions to the study, providing a very powerful view of alignment across suppliers, service-delivery and consumer groups.
Outcome
The health industry now has invaluable information about how to better satisfy patients, GPs and suppliers.
To support this evolution, UltraFeedback has strengthened its collaboration in primary healthcare by conducting member needs research with Divisions of General Practice, and now measures GP satisfaction with National and State Division Forums. We also have benchmark studies in the Pharmaceutical industry in Ireland, UK, Australia, Philippines and China.
GPFeedback - Gender Diversity Benchmarking in Management
Overview
In 2003/2004 UltraFeedback were asked to investigate gender diversity in management. The purpose of this study was to identify the reasons behind why women are under-presented in senior management roles in Australia.
Services
A novel research approach was developed and implemented. The research included benchmarking a number of EOWA and industry recognised leaders including Merck Sharp & Dohme, Cisco Systems, Sara Lee, Roche, Kimberley-Clark and Johnson & Johnson companies.
A combination of research was used:
- Literature review
- In-depth exploratory assessment, and
- Secure confidential online surveying
All the techniques were designed to identify and quantify corporate strategies and their relative performance in this challenging area, with extended measurement and benchmarking ongoing.
STA Travel Worldwide
Overview
The branches of STA Travel are small and geographically diverse. Employee satisfaction is a critical component of STA Travel’s business strategy.
Services
Since 1992, UltraFeedback and its predecessor (a non-Internet enabled organisation) has run STA Travel's employee satisfaction research. While senior management is keen to receive and act on feedback, high levels of confidentiality must be maintained for the process to have credibility and be supported by staff.
Outcome
UltraFeedback’s research has helped management remain sensitive to staff needs in Australia’s fastest growing travel organisation and support a very positive workforce, even through the recent difficult times in the travel industry. Management is committed to this process and views the detailed online analysis provided by the research as a significant competitive edge for STA Travel.
Mokum
Overview
Alignment with the needs of customers is vital for a business that depends on service for repeat business and survival.
Services
UltraFeedback assists this high quality fabrics and design company gain customer feedback from its global business to its Auckland base. Employee engagement is measured across the business to produce the direction for ongoing improvement in its alignment with customers.
Outcome
Mokum now have valuable feedback on their customers, and can use this information to improve processes and overall customer service to ultimately increase their profits.
Victorian Patient Satisfaction Monitor – VPSM
Overview
UltraFeedback was engaged by Victoria's Department of Human Services to perform ongoing Victorian Patient Satisfaction Monitor research (VPSM). The VPSM is the primary device for obtaining patient satisfaction data across over 100 public hospitals across Victoria. It has been operating since 2000, and has surveyed more than 320,000 people to date, with another 80,000 each year anticipated in the future.
Services
One of the keys to UltraFeedback’s appointment to the VPSM was having a demonstrated background in providing innovative solutions to research challenges. For this project an intricate data de-identification process was developed, protecting patient confidentiality whilst safeguarding the value of the demographic statistics. A new analytic method was also devised to allow for more meaningful data analysis and more powerful inferential testing.
The complexity and scale of the VPSM process is considerable. VPSM survey details
Obtains views of patients using a mail out questionnaire
- Available in 10 different languages
- Patients are asked for their views on all aspects of their hospital stay.
- Patients selected from an opt-in pool via random sampling
The historical response rate is around 42 percent and the project requires high levels of sensitivity in dealing with ill and elderly patients.
The Department of Human Services can monitor feedback and monitor the satisfaction levels of Victorian patients.
Noni B
Overview
Noni B is a leading women's fashion retailer in Australia, with over 160 stores nationally.
Services
UltraFeedback undertook a company-wide internal climate survey of Noni B's 1000 employees in May 2004, with a subsequent survey in May 2006, and then worked closely with management to use UltraFeedback's unique reporting system to disseminate the findings from the research to staff. UltraFeedback used its consultant coaching and mentoring expertise to help implement the Priorities to Improve identified in the research.
In 2006, Noni B also commissioned UltraFeedback to conduct a large-scale Customer Satisfaction Survey of its loyalty club members and target market.
Outcome
The results of each year's employee engagement tracking surveys are compared to the previous year's data, to highlight the areas in need of improvement and identify the challenges faced by the organisation. One of the project challenges is gaining a high respondent participation rate in a time-pressured commercial environment.
Noni B is now able to measure customer perceptions and their alignment with employee understanding of customer needs.
Guide Dogs NSW / ACT
Overview
Guide Dogs NSW / ACT wanted to examine the motivation behind charitable donations in a market of increased pressure for charitable support activity. A particular challenge was gaining the trust and participation of respondents in understanding their rationale for making bequests, traditionally an area of high sensitivity.
The client also wanted the research to help them understand the consumer perception for a range of different charitable organisations and their comparative service performance.
Services
UltraFeedback conducted both qualitative and quantitative research for Guide Dogs NSW/ACT, incorporating:
- Internal interviewing
- Consumer focus groups of donors in NSW and the ACT
- Corporate partner interviewing, and
- A combination of online and mailed consumer surveys.
Outcome
The organization gained access to valuable feedback about how well it was communicating with its donor and bequestor groups, as well as getting improved insights into the motivations of its potential supporters.
Mt Buller
Overview
Mt Buller is a Victorian ski resort interested in gathering feedback from their visitors.
Services
UltraFeedback runs the Mt Buller Gate Visitor survey for the Mt Buller Resort Management Board and has done so each year since 2004. On arrival at the gate, visitors are handed a postcard invitation that contains the survey URL, a user name and password as well as an invitation to participate in the survey. When next the visitor has access to the Internet, the online questionnaire can be completed. We also ran kiosk and intercept interviews on the mountain.
Outcome
The MBRMB uses the results to plan improvements to the resort and to help develop the strategic plan for the mountain.
Certified Practicing Accountants (CPA) Australia
Overview
CPA is Australia’s largest accounting organisation providing public information and member specific information.
Services
As this was the first time that extensive research was undertaken in this sector, a number of focus groups were organised in several capital cities. From the focus group results, a comprehensive questionnaire was designed.
Outcome
An extremely high response rate enabled UltraFeedback to provide the Director with a detailed profile of the membership as well as access to an online report, allowing filtering on key criteria and cross tabulation across variables. A secondary outcome was the updating of the membership database to reflect recent changes of status and position of many members.
Sabre
Overview
Sabre is the supplier of leading professional hair care brands like Joico and Fudge.
Services
UltraFeedback was approached to develop an extensive study of the two brands Joico and Fudge. Exploratory face to face research was conducted amongst all stakeholder groups; hairdressing salons, consumers, internal sales and administrative staff. Initially the research was limited to Australia, but due to its success was extended to include the New Zealand and UK international markets.
Outcome
The resulting data was in-depth and the online reporting enabled Sabre to fine tune their brand strategies.
“I cannot recommend UltraFeedback highly enough and thank the team for the value that they have contributed to our business in this our first and now benchmark study”.
Robyn Pitt, Group Marketing Director - Sabre Group