OUR PHILOSOPHY

Providing high level evidence-based strategic advice is instinct and reason’s strength and nowhere is this more important than in government.

For more than a decade now there have been moves within service delivery to support individuals, families and communities to achieve greater ‘efficiency’. And, ‘customer self-sufficiency’ through the delivery of policy advice and high quality accessible social, health and welfare services.  Further, to support customers, providers and businesses through convenient and ever more efficient methods such as online service delivery.

We have conducted research to support this move and ensure the needs of both customers and departments are met in the transition.

Many public sector organisations need to balance the need for greater efficiency with the ongoing aspect of customer satisfaction. The approach we generally recommend is sensitive to the most common complaints about satisfaction research, i.e. nothing happens because…

  • the results showed we had to get better on everything and it was “all too hard” and “we didn’t know where to start”
  • the results showed us where to improve but it didn’t tell us how e.g. was it about the service itself or our managerial control of it
  • we measured but couldn’t get agreement on the type of management action to take
  • we didn’t get ‘buy-in’ on an ongoing basis from our management, staff or stakeholders because we didn’t communicate the results or the actions we planned to take.
HOW WE DO IT

We have extensive  experience in the public sector at the Commonwealth, state/territory and local levels and is currently a member of panels servicing more than 30 government agencies.  Government and social research and evaluation represent about 40 per cent of instinct and reason’s consulting work and  has ranged from major global and national projects to targeted concept testing and evaluation studies.

Examples of our work include:

  • research on a large government website to ensure it is meeting the needs of its users
  • evaluation of the use of high definition video conference as part of enhance face to face service delivery
  • evaluation of a new service delivery model for whole-of-government services
  • research on the responses of small to medium sized businesses across state and territory jurisdictions to the new model of harmonised work health and safety laws.
WHAT IT MEANS FOR CLIENTS

Accurate insights to inform communication are important to government. If you are spending taxpayers’ money to communicate issues and encourage action or behavioural change, you need to know that your messages will be received correctly and acted upon as expected.

Our strength lies in our ability to approach a problem with both divergent thinking (what are all the possibilities) and convergent thinking (what messages and channels work best).  We use a model that provides the evidence-based and operationally practical outcomes you need.

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