A History of Industry Connections

Our analysts have “client-side” experience in a number of industries and/or have conducted research in a particular vertical for many years.

  1. Education – WestGroup has a long history of working with local school districts, community colleges, and major universities on issues ranging from public opinion on override initiatives to student and prospective student segmentation. Other projects include parent and employee satisfaction, school choice, internal communications, disenrollment surveys, and community perceptions.
  2. Financial Services – with project directors who have worked in the banking industry for many years, WestGroup offers financial services clients a unique perspective. Our clients include local, regional, and national banks as well as credit unions and insurance companies. Topics include customer segmentation and profitability, new products, channel evaluation, customer experience and more.
  3. icon_government_64x64Government – WestGroup Research has an extensive background in research for municipalities and government agencies, particularly with transportation-related issues (e.g., demand management, long range planning, public transit), air quality, public health (e.g., nutrition & physical activity, WIC, tobacco, teen pregnancy, disease control, oral health), food assessment, law enforcement, service evaluation, and employee satisfaction.
  4. icon_healthcare_64x64Healthcare – With clients ranging from community hospitals to major hospital systems to veterans medical centers, WestGroup project directors have a deep understanding of many of the issues facing health care marketers – patient-experience, continuum of care, competition, reform, market share, and social media marketing. In addition, WestGroup analysts have extensive experience with companies providing wellness products, exercise and nutrition programs for seniors, and major health insurance companies.
  5. Non-Profit Organizations – With community service as a core value, WestGroup is passionate about the work we do with non-profit organizations, both local and national. Studies include client satisfaction, social marketing awareness and effectiveness, community image, and public relations research.
  6. Utilities – Project directors with client-side experience combined with decades of work in the industry lead to incomparable expertise in the electric utility industry. Clients benefit from insight gained from hundreds of studies on dozens of topics relevant to this sector. Innovative techniques for measuring customer experience, sophisticated analytics and modeling, and electronic reporting have been a value add to utility companies throughout the country.
  7. Gaming – We have conducted numerous studies on behalf of area and out-of-state casinos, and have served as the primary research supplier to The Arizona Lottery for more than a decade. Studies include ongoing tracking, new product testing, mystery shopping and more.
  8. Housing/construction – This industry is a key part of Arizona’s economy, and WestGroup has extensive experience with builders, developers and contractors. Studies include mystery shopping of model homes, awareness and image testing, product evaluations (floorplans, etc.) and shopper/resident satisfaction studies.
  9. Legal Research – WestGroup’s resources and facilities are tailor-made for this growing field of research. We provide an optimal environment for simulating jury selection, testing arguments and evidence, and evaluating litigators in civil and criminal situations.

Case Study: Dickinson Financial Corporation

“While others will download research findings and walk away, WestGroup will lead the discussion of how discovered knowledge will assist in building the strategic architecture of a business solution. Our business and client relationship with WestGroup is not so much research relationship, but business partnership – one that shares our journey and quest for knowledge.”

–Charles Freeman, SVP, Director of Marketing,Dickinson Financial Corporation

 

After the sale of our flagship bank, Bank Midwest, we had a unique opportunity to retool our business model and play to our strengths – military banking, in-store banking, and from a commercial standpoint, middle-market banking. Integral to the retooling process has been the development of our new brand. This was a huge challenge for a variety of reasons including our unique distribution system, which includes six banks in five states and a presence on 30 military installations in 17 states.

With this daunting task ahead of us, we engaged WestGroup to be our strategic research partner.

We started from square one as we needed to answer some of the most basic questions: What is our image in the various communities we serve? What makes Dickinson Financial banks unique? What do our current customers like and dislike about us? Why did our former customers leave? Insight from this research proved invaluable as we developed our new brand, tagline, and messaging points.

Next, we worked with WestGroup on a benchmark customer satisfaction study which evolved into an on-going customer experience feedback system. Now, we keep on top of what’s happening in all of our banks, in all channels, on a quarterly basis.  This ongoing measurement system has provided us with the needed tool for change.