Nonprofit healthcare provider Zooms to evaluate new customer programs

At Main Line Health, the staff has been so pleased with Zoomerang that they are broadening usage from customer-need evaluations to cover employee recruitment evaluations.

Main Line Health System is a nonprofit healthcare provider that operates three acute care hospitals, as well as a rehabilitation hospital, a homecare network and a clinical laboratory, in Philadelphias Main Line area. With 7,700 employees and 1,300 physicians, its a large organization that needs to know where and how to best focus its resources.

Surveys ease of use grabs attention
We were looking at ways to economize and make our market research dollars go further, says Morris Fansler, Senior Marketing Planning Research Analyst. My background was in mail and telephone consumer surveys, he says, so in early 2003 when he first saw a Zoomerang survey, he became interested. I was getting surveyed by other vendors. Id receive this great little online survey, so he inquired, and found that it was Zoomerang. Fansler didnt have to wait long to decide that the online survey software was effective. The first project we did made everyone a believer in Zoomerang, he says.

Initial survey exceeds expectations
We had physicians interested in setting up online menopause information for women. We wanted to know whether this was a concept that women would buy into, and whether they thought it was a useful source of information, Fansler says. We thought this would be a great way to try Zoomerang, he says. They structured the survey to reach women from their Womens Health Service Affinity Service. The survey included nine questions, inquiring about the respondents interest in the proposed services. As well, we asked the women whether or not they had a GYN physician, and if not, would they like to be contacted to set up an appointment. From that alone, we received 25 new appointments. Just those responses more than paid for the cost of the annual Zoomerang membership, he says.

Of the 12,000 women in the membership, we had 4,600 valid email addresses, he says. My goal was to have an 8% response rate. This was based on his experience in market research. You can get a 1-2% response rate if you send something out there untargeted. If youre really targeted, you can get a 4-6% response rate. When I looked at the extensive research that was going on in the banking industry, which I considered the benchmark on email responses, they were getting a 10-15% response rate. From this, I set my goal at an 8% response rate.

Fansler sent out the survey on a Tuesday, as he had read that Tuesday and Wednesday were the best days to expect someone open their email and respond. The survey remained open for 11 days. We had 100 responses in the first couple of hours, he says. Overall, we had an 11.6% response rate, with a 4.3% error rate at a 95% confidence interval. I was impressed, he says. Once we were at 8%, it met my expectations. At 11.6%, it just blew me away. I thought, at that rate, were playing with the big boys. I know that other companies are spending way more money on market research. With Zoomerang, were getting great results that otherwise would be more than my budget would allow, he says.

Survey success leads to expanding use throughout organization
From the success of the first survey the results of which went to develop their Online Menopause Information service the staff at Main Line Health has expanded the use of Zoomerang throughout the organization. Now its being used all over the System, Fansler says.

They recently launched a large survey to get feedback on their website. Weve put a flashing banner on the site and are offering an incentive, he says. When a visitor to the site takes the survey, they are entered in a draw for a $100 gift certificate to a local restaurant. To date they are getting 20 survey responses a day. My goal is to reach 500 responses. Were leaving it open for 5 weeks, Fansler says.

Zoomerang has replaced a lot of our traditional pen and paper surveys and is providing us with a whole new way of doing things, he says. Zoomerang has become so integrated into their operations that its continually used. For example, the Human Resources Department uses the survey software on an ongoing basis, to provide feedback for recruiter-specific evaluations.

Zoomerang is such a cost-effective way to do market research. Were sold on it here. And we keep finding new and better ways of using it, says Fansler.