FSCS425 Strategic Market Research Services

1.0Background and examples of market research conducted: FSCS currently conducts a range of market research across different parts of the business. We are now seeking to create a company-wide market research framework, where we can call upon a small group of trusted research partners to fulfil our strategic market research needs. Overall, we anticipate having no more than 6 strategic research partners that we can call upon. While we don’t have set research briefs defined at this stage, FSCS is entering into an important period of strategic change where we will be refreshing our future corporate strategy, brand strategy, undertaking a full CX transformation and developing a whole new policy and stakeholder strategy. We therefore anticipate significant ad-hoc market research work across all these key areas. To date we’ve undertaken a significant number of research projects in recent years and have leveraged various methodologies: 1.1Qual and Quant Research We’ve historically run focus groups and quant research on an ad-hoc and continuous basis. This has been largely to get feedback on certain aspects of our service or to help us define our current brand platform or communication strategy. 1.2User Feedback and CX Research Surveys We invite visitors to our website and online claims service to comment on the website and its usability and to suggest any improvements 1.3Mystery Shopping & Stakeholder Research We’ve regularly undertaken research to understand financial services firms’ understanding of FSCS and how they talk to their customers about us as well as ad-hoc research among MPs to shape our approaches to policy and stakeholder management. 2.0Future service requirements Moving forward we are keen to evolve our requirements and focus on strategic market research providers that can provide specific areas of expertise. We recognize that traditional methodologies have evolved and there are newer more innovative, agile research methods that have come on to the market post Covid (such as online co-creation panels and more agile research platforms). We are looking for innovative methods and ‘method neutral’ partners who can provide added value and thought leadership to our chosen areas of strategic development as outlined in paragraphs 1.1 to 1.3 above. 2.1 We are specifically interested in market research partners who have experience in Financial Services Market Research & Insight, and in addition have significant experience across one or more of the following areas of expertise, leveraging the latest techniques in both qualitative and quantitative market research. (i) Strategic Brand and Communications (ii) Customer Experience Research & Design; and (iii) Policy and Stakeholder Research