The challenge

Police Authorities are independent bodies responsible for monitoring the work of its Constabulary. This includes making sure staff maintain professional standards. They also evaluate the Force’s performance. In order to assess levels of service provided at police helpdesks, we were commissioned to conduct a mystery shopping project by one Police Authority in Derbyshire.

Objectives

To assess police response to simple enquiries made in person and by telephone.

Our approach

Our mystery shoppers made a total of 48 visits across 12 stations for eight different scenarios. These ranged from improving the security of the home to asking what to do about lost property they had found. They were a mixture of genders and ages to check whether staff attitudes were influenced by these factors. Our mystery shoppers also made telephone calls to police stations. We assessed staff courtesy and professionalism, quality of information given, time taken for each enquiry, front counter environment and accessibility.

Each enquiry was recorded using a structured marking grid allowing for both descriptive comments and quantitative data.

Outcomes

As with any project, this police authority market research provided the highest level of analysis. We analysed the data by scenario and help desk, which identified which stations were performing well. We also reported on any areas where knowledge seemed to be lacking.

As the result of this work, The Policy Authority recommended us to several more Police Authorities. This has resulted in our undertaking mystery shopping projects and police authority market research across the UK.

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The challenge

Yorkshire Energy Partnership (YEP) wanted to launch a local energy tariff for residents of North Yorkshire. It would focus on helping those vulnerable to fuel poverty.

We were commissioned to test reactions to the concept of a local energy tariff. We were also asked to examine how best to develop and market the proposition to appeal to as many people as possible.

In addition, we looked at attitudes towards energy suppliers and barriers to switching provider.

Objectives

The key objectives of the research were:

• To identify barriers to switching energy supplier among those vulnerable to fuel poverty and the wider population
• To explore means of overcoming these barriers, for example through product design, marketing and promotion
• To inform ideas for tariff design and marketing and test them out with target groups
• To compare our findings with previous Ofgem studies to test whether barriers identified in national research are applicable at a regional level

Our approach

We carried out six focus groups among North Yorkshire residents in two stages:

• the first phase identified barriers to switching energy supplier and explored ways in which these barriers could be overcome
• the second phase focused on attitudes towards the Yorkshire Energy Partnership proposition. It explored views on elements such as logos and noted reactions to specific visual examples of marketing.

Between the two stages of focus groups we worked to identify key methods of marketing the tariff. These were based on the findings of the stage one groups. These were then used to create material for use in the stage two focus groups. We also conducted six depth interviews among key local stakeholders to ensure that their views and experiences were taken into account.

Outcomes

We discovered that the price would need to be competitive, guaranteed for a period of time and be easy to understand. For marketing, people responded best to price, clear information and how YEP was not-for-profit and run from Yorkshire.

Yorkshire Energy Partnership used the research to help create their marketing material. They made their tariff information available through a variety of channels to reach a range of people, including vulnerable residents.

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