FINANCIAL SERVICES

We’ve built long relationships with some of the largest names in banking by conquering the industry’s steep learning curve. Tackling some of the industry’s biggest challenges has turned us into experts in the most complicated aspects of the field such as commercial, corporate, specialty, and high net worth banking.

AREAS OF FOCUS

Products and Services

  • Concept testing
  • Product launch and adoption – assessing feasibility, interest, and likely demand
  • Loan runoffs / attrition
  • Debit / Credit card development and feature optimization
  • Mortgage service – assessing consumer needs

Marketing and Branding

  • Monitoring brand health and market spend impact
  • Assessing favorability and consumer perceptions in the marketplace
  • Testing emotional connection and the impact on business outcomes
  • Testing creative to improve marketing effectiveness
  • Competitive assessment and positioning in new / growth markets

Customer Experience

  • Understanding channel use and behaviors
  • Digital transformation – moving customers from the branch to online tools
  • Understanding the needs and behaviors of target segments – Mass Affluent, Millennials, Students, etc.
  • Understanding the pain points related to online banking
  • New branch design / concept testing

Products and Services

  • Online banking platform optimization
  • Workplace banking program development
  • Rewards program development
  • Use of Merchant Services
  • Loan runoffs / attrition
  • Cash management optimization
  • Use of self-management tools among business owners
  • Business credit card optimization
  • Fraud and cyber-security concerns

Customer Experience

  • Monitoring satisfaction and loyalty
  • Assessing RM interactions and impact on satisfaction
  • Emotional connection and engagement
  • Assessing the needs of women business owners
  • Monitoring the sentiment of small business owners
  • Service model effectiveness
  • Assessing the impact of RM turnover
  • Onboarding of new products
  • Handling of service requests
  • Market segmentation for better service delivery

Channel Usage

  • Understanding branch engagements
  • Use of ATMs for business needs
  • Digital engagement and use of e-tools
  • Service experience vs. expectations

Needs of Target / Growth Segments

  • HNW Women
  • Next Gen and Millennials
  • Business Owners
  • Professional Advisors

Studying Key Behaviors

  • Wealth planning
  • Wealth transfer
  • Family education

Client Acquisition

  • Sales effectiveness
  • Win / Loss
  • Client advocacy and referrals

Client Experience

  • Satisfaction and loyalty – Mass Affluent, HNW, UNHW, Family Office
  • New client onboarding
  • Client departures / Exited relationships
  • Relationship reviews
  • Implementing online services platform
  • Service model effectiveness
  • Segmenting the client base based on service expectations and communication preferences
  • Optimizing the impact of client communications

Branding and Positioning

  • Brand awareness and perceptions on growth markets
  • Thought leadership for the Middle Market
  • Leveraging digital content for bank consideration
  • Best practices – Foreign Exchange and Debt Capital Markets
  • Specialization in key industry verticals
  • Assessing market leadership in healthcare investment banking services

Understanding the Needs of the Market

  • Business owners and succession planning
  • International payables needs
  • Needs for Capital Markets services
  • Banking needs in key international markets

Client Experience

  • Tracking relationship performance over time – Middle Market, Large Corporate, Treasury Management, Commercial Cards, Real Estate
  • Role of the RM and impact of relevant business discussions
  • TM revenue attrition
  • TMO sales effectiveness
  • Value proposition and service model enhancements in the Lower Middle Market segment

Processes and Procedures

  • Onboarding of new products
  • Syndicated loan onboarding process
  • Pain points in the credit application process
  • Reliability of TM online platforms

RETAIL & HOSPITALITY

We have extensive experience working on the client side in retail and hospitality to leverage our knowledge in solving your business questions. And we are based in Pittsburgh where we have awesome sports teams and fans and Schmidt is proud to be partnering with local sports teams and taking their fans understanding and insights to the next level.

Examples of our work –

  • Loyalty program benefits and costs optimization conjoint
  • Shopping journey experience mapping
  • Store format assessment and optimization
  • Lost shopper analysis
  • Mobile app design research
  • Pickup / delivery services design

Examples of our work –

  • Competitor attrition assessment done at store, category, and brand level
  • Hard discounters’ immersions and early adopters profiling
  • Shoppers emotional loyalty assessment

Examples of our work –

  • Segmentation of sport fans based on their motivations to attend a game
  • Deep insight into shopper segments shopping behavior and motivations in store
  • Convenience store eating occasion segmentation

Examples of our work –

  • Brand perceptions assessment and tracking
  • Brand equity health
  • Emotional Connection Proprietary Measure and Impact on Business Outcomes
  • Corporate reputation
  • Customer segmentation based on store affinity

Examples of our work –

  • Brand health assessment
  • Brand awareness/perceptions in legacy and new markets
  • Unfavorable perceptions among non-customers
  • Market position differentiation
  • Rewards program optimization
  • Message, benefit, and claim test

Examples of our work –

  • Early needs discovery and concepting
  • Concept creation and fine-tuning
  • Concept test
  • Product features need assessment
  • Product taste test
  • Product rollout tracking studies
  • In-home usage test

UTILITIES, POWER & ENERGY

Some of our earliest clients were in the utility, power and energy sectors. This early introduction helped us build a deep knowledge bank that we still draw from. Today, we work closely with our clients in complex areas, like nuclear energy, automation technology, industrial chemicals, process controls, and semiconductors.

We have a strong track record in establishing and managing research programs for these industries, covering all aspects of customer engagement. Experts in the unique challenges leaders in the utility, power, and energy sectors face, we stay informed on key industry trends and activities that matter to our clients.

We know that developing innovative energy solutions, driving operational efficiency, and focusing on customer experience are critical to our clients’ business. Complex regulations and evolving technology make finding sustainable business solutions difficult, which is why we deploy a wide variety of methodologies to provide our clients with actionable insights to better serve their organization, customers, and the community.

Products and Services

  • Product launch and adoption – assessing feasibility, interest, and likely demand
  • Gas and water line insurance services
  • Electric vehicles
  • Natural gas vehicles
  • Gas lighting
  • Heat pumps
  • Fuel cells
  • Energy efficiency programs
  • Renewable energy generation

Marketing and Communications

  • Rate case perceptions
  • Marketing communications effectiveness
  • Website evaluation
  • UX for website and mobile app
  • Digital touchpoint intercept (i.e., post-interaction survey deployed on website and mobile app)
  • Advertising effectiveness
  • Brand equity
  • Customer segmentation
  • Utility bill design

Customer Experience, Satisfaction and Loyalty

  • Customer satisfaction and loyalty – residential and commercial
  • Competitor benchmarking
  • Call center performance measurement
  • Major account customer experience
  • Solar panel installation experience
  • COVID business customer experience

Types of Research Executed

  • Customer satisfaction and loyalty
  • Needs assessments
  • Market sizing

Target Audience

  • Nuclear power
  • Utilities (Publicly-owned, Investor-owned, Cooperatives)
  • Water treatment plants
  • Major industrial complexes (e.g., refineries, production facilities)
  • Needs assessment for new and replacement services (e.g., steam generators, engineering services, instrumentation and control systems, nuclear parts)

Research Examples

  • Forecasting the need for various services in the nuclear industry (e.g., steam generators, engineering services, nuclear fuel, integrated outage services, spare parts, instrumentation and control systems)
  • New installation of distributed control systems
  • Assessing the state of strategic relationship related to process systems and solutions
  • Estimating industry spend for key transmission and distribution products – circuit breakers and capacitors
  • Forecasting market spend for dry spent fuel storage systems
  • Sizing the market for turbine control systems

HEALTH CARE RESEARCH SERVICES

Health care is rapidly evolving — and obtaining high-quality feedback and insights from patients, clinicians, and health plan members has become a high priority for existing leaders and new entries to the industry. Our goal at Schmidt is to support our client partners in the health care industry with insights to develop motivating communications, inform new service offerings and digital features, and ultimately improve experiences and grow their business.

At Schmidt, we work with both payors and providers to scope, execute, analyze, and report actionable research by leveraging the following methodologies:

  • Recruiting services – we recruit the participants (plan members, clinicians, patients). We can recruit from your list or from our established network of leading US health care sample providers.
  • Full-service qualitative projects from recruiting, to moderating, analysis, and reporting.
  • Online quantitative projects (with plan members, clinicians, and patients) where we recruit participants, design and deploy the survey, analyze and report the insights.
  • Telephone surveys leveraging our in-house interviewing team who are specially trained to engage respondents who may be difficult to reach online.

All our researchers are HIPAA trained. Our SOC 2 Certification ensures that Schmidt’s process, people, and technology meet all compliance, privacy, and data exchange protocols required in every aspect of health care research.

Some of the recent strategic research questions we’ve partnered on include:

  • What is the customer purchase journey of ACA, Medicare Advantage, and Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP) eligible members?
  • How do members shop for health insurance and how are they being influenced during the actual enrollment period?
  • What are the most impactful benefits impacting provider and payor selection of health insurance plans?
  • How can we enhance the hospital experience based on in-depth conversations with patients?
  • What is the level of Specialty Rx satisfaction with services delivered, for both patients and provider?

OTHER INDUSTRIES

We also conduct research for clients in supply chain, distribution & logistics, higher education, trade associations, non-profits, insurance, custom home building, and several other industries. Do not hesitate to give us a call and ask how we can help.

  • Moments of Truth/Transaction Follow Up
  • In-market assessment of procedures (pilot vs. control)
  • Channel usage and satisfaction
  • Mystery Shopping
  • Prospective student media usage (undergraduate, graduate, adult degree programs)
  • Prospective student school choice preferences (undergraduate, graduate, adult degree programs)
  • Market perceptions (prospective undergraduate parents)
  • Brand tracking
  • Member satisfaction and engagement
  • Lapsed member perceptions
  • Publication review