NRECA Market Research Services performs a number of different types of studies to help cooperatives become more member-focused. Some of the more often utilized include the following:
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[accordion title="Consumer%20Segmentation%20Studies"]When communicating with consumer-members about your co-op's products and services, it's critical to position your message in a way that will achieve desired results. To position your message properly, you need to understand who your members are and what motivates their choices regarding energy consumption. A common tool used in traditional marketing to understand customer motivations is consumer segmentation which is the practice of dividing a customer base into groups of individuals that are similar in specific ways relevant to marketing, such as age, gender, interests and spending habits. Market research can help you better understand your members by using a segmentation model.
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[accordion title="Organizational%20Culture%20Assessment"]A healthy organization culture is a key driver for Cooperative’s success; studies have shown how a healthy culture leads to higher levels of safety, member satisfaction, productivity, and overall organizational effectiveness. Organization culture is driven from leadership practices and shapes the norms and beliefs that influence how employees approach their work and interact with each other. It is important that leaders understand the current culture and how it enables or hinders performance results. NRECA provides a service to measure and assess the current state of the Cooperative’s culture. The survey helps identify strengths and opportunities within the organization and captures the current levels of perceived influences that shape the current culture, establishing a baseline for continuous improvement. The survey results can be complimented with facilitated‐guided follow‐up workshops to define the desired culture attributes and outline targeted actions for migrating to enhanced culture.[/accordion]
[accordion title="Member%20Satisfaction%20Studies"]This research will gauge members’ satisfaction and commitment to your co-op and help you understand what it is about your service that causes members to be more or less satisfied. Using our residential member survey data from the co-ops we serve we can compare your survey results to other co-ops nationwide. Our “Co-op Norms” are not taken from the universe of all co-ops, but from those who value, monitor and measure the satisfaction of their members and therefore represent higher performing co-ops. This can help you benchmark where your co-op stands. For Touchstone Energy co-ops, we will include the necessary questions to have your American Customer Satisfaction Index (ACSI) calculated.
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[accordion title="Member%20Loyalty%20Index"]Co-ops are committed to increasing member engagement and loyalty, a key function of the communications department. The Member Loyalty Index (MLI) is a statistically significant and reliable measure of member loyalty. The MLI also measures a member’s emotional attachment to their co-op. Increasing emotional attachment is the key to increasing member trust in the co-op, consumer-member identity, and willingness to take grassroots action on behalf of the co-op. The Member Loyalty Index consists of five measures which survey participants are asked on a likert-type scale. These four measures are then collated to create your MLI score.
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[accordion title="Communications%20Studies%20"]Our communications and readership studies utilize surveys to help you determine how best to communicate with members. These surveys may assess preferred methods of communication (print vs. online), topics of interest and overall awareness of the information included in your magazine or newsletter. By establishing reader preferences, likes, and dislikes, these studies provide actionable results that co-ops can use to improve and strengthen member communications.[/accordion]
[accordion title="Contact%2FService%20Monitoring%20Studies"]How quickly are your employees resolving issues after members contact the co-op? Are your member service representatives always friendly and courteous? Where are improvements needed in the field? Improve your service to members by getting immediate feedback on the contact you have with them. This program is custom designed to your co-op operations allowing you to re-contact members on a continuous basis to fix any outstanding issues. This program becomes part of a continuous effort to improve a co-op's performance quality in all areas.[/accordion]
[accordion title="Market%20Assessment%20Studies"]Would your members use high-speed Internet service if it were offered by your cooperative? Would they like to view and/or pay their electric bill online? Are your members interested in an EV charging program? Before investing in a new service or program for your members, it is important to understand the potential success. This will become increasingly important as distributed generation and beneficial electrification continue to become more prominent in co-op territories. Conducting a survey with your members can help you understand the potential financial return on your co-ops investment before making the financial commitment to any program.[/accordion]
[accordion title="Commercial%20%26%20Industrial%20Studies"]What are your commercial and industrial members' future business plans and energy needs? Are they satisfied with your service? How would they rate the quality of power they receive? These are a few of the questions to ask to help you serve your business members better. We offer in-depth interviewing to help you profile and better understand the needs of your key accounts as well as scripted surveys for your other commercial and industrial members. [/accordion]
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