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Case Studies

Case Studies

Railway Passenger Satisfaction with Passenger Assist

Passenger Assist is a free service offered by rail companies providing passengers with disabilities or anyone else who may require help, with assistance to enable them to make their journey. Rail companies’ participation in Passenger Assist is mandated through their regulatory requirement to have an Accessible Travel Policy (ATP) approved by the Office of Rail and Road (ORR). The intent of Passenger Assist is to make rail travel accessible to everyone. Since 2017 ORR has commissioned annual research by to investigate the extent to which Passenger Assist meets users’ needs and expectations, and to explore how well individual operators perform in terms of meeting their Passenger Assist obligations. ORR commissioned M·E·L Research Ltd to conduct another wave of this research for 2022-23 to support its ongoing compliance monitoring in this area and to build on the wider body of evidence about how well Passenger Assist is meeting user needs and expectations.

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Case Studies

Health and wellbeing social research agency

Evaluating Social Return on Investment (SROI) of a Blue Prescribing Project at Steart Marshes

M·E·L Research was tasked with conducting an SROI evaluation of the Blue Prescribing project implemented by Wildfowl & Wetlands Trust (WWT) at Steart Marshes, in conjunction with a similar evaluation at WWT's London Wetland Centre. The Blue Prescribing initiative aimed to leverage the therapeutic benefits of nature by involving individuals with mental health issues in group activities based in wetland environments. The project sought to quantify the social value generated and better understand the positive changes experienced by participants.

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Case Studies

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Inclusivity in Football: 30 Year Impact Report and The Role of Kick It Out

This study was a comprehensive evaluation conducted by M·E·L Research, focusing on the transformation of inclusivity within the football landscape since 1993. The study delved into the perceptions of football fans regarding the changes that have transpired over the years and the influence of Kick It Out, an organisation dedicated to combating discrimination in football. The research combines quantitative and qualitative methodologies to provide a holistic view of the subject matter, as well as providing an SROI evaluation for Raise Your Game.

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Case Studies

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Enhancing Consumer Satisfaction Survey for CCW

The Consumer Council for Water (CCW) is an independent organization representing water consumers in England and Wales, helping thousands of consumers resolve complaints against water companies while providing free advice and support. To ensure a high standard of service and adaptability to consumer needs, CCW conducts a satisfaction survey among its consumers on a rolling basis. MEL Research undertake telephone-based research to assess consumer satisfaction and improve the survey's effectiveness.

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Case Studies

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Enhancing Customer Journey Experience for The Consumer Council for Water (CCW)

The Consumer Council for Water (CCW) is committed to providing customers with a simple, effortless, and speedy experience for resolving complaints with their water companies, without resorting to legal action. They aim to act as the 'voice of consumers' and ensure fair assessments of complaints. To assess the current customer journey and gauge customer satisfaction, CCW commissioned MEL Research to conduct tele-depth qualitative interviews with consumers who had made complaints with their water companies, escalated to CCW, and further escalated to WATRS.

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Case Studies

Utilities Market Research Agency Social Research

Assessing the Impact of Odour Mitigation Work by Thames Water

To meet the quality assurance requirements of Ofwat, Thames Water needed to demonstrate reduced nuisance from odour, with a reduction in odour complaints being considered crucial evidence. Since the communities around the treatment works rarely complained about odour emissions, Thames Water did not see community surveys as a reliable measure to gauge the impact of odour mitigation investment on customer experiences.

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Case Studies

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YMCA Digital Services Research

YMCA commissioned M·E·L Research to explore the interest, desire and opportunities facing YMCA’s digitalisation agenda, focusing particularly on what young people and wider YMCA service users want from digital services. Whilst the digital revolution has spread across many sectors over the years, the voluntary sector in general, including YMCA specifically, has traditionally focussed on face-to-face service offerings and have either not experienced or been able to ‘ride-out’ the commercial drivers of greater digitalisation.

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Case Studies

Culture-Heritage-Market-Research

Developing a Research & Evaluation Framework for a London NPO

The aim of this project was to create an evaluation framework and toolkit that can be used across departments and programmes at the Museum. It is essential that the Museum regularly evaluates their work and that they learn from each evaluation so that they can constantly improve practice year-on-year across the museum’s activity. nitially, we undertook a thorough review of the existing evaluation frameworks currently being used within the museum to understand what works well and what didn't, and where there was potential for duplication of effort or areas where insight might fall through the gaps. We then undertook a series of 20 interviews with individuals from across departments and at a range of levels. These ranged from the Director of Corporate Services to Head of Marketing, and from individual curators to digital content teams.

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Case Studies

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Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman (PHSO) Employee Experience

M·E·L Research were commissioned to deliver an organisation-wide staff survey using the same approach. The survey design and reporting metrics had close alignment to the Civil Service People Survey to allow for benchmarking of the results. Additional questions were also built into the survey to understand more around hybrid working and productivity, in the context of the post-pandemic workplace. The survey was conducted online across a mix of geographical locations and a set of FAQs were drafted to help inform staff of the purpose of the survey and to help alleviate any concerns on confidentiality and M·E·L Research’s role in undertaking the survey. A response rate of 81% was achieved.

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Case Studies

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Older People’s Experience of Scamming

To collate a variety of perspectives across England we conducted fieldwork in the South, the Midlands and the North. In addition, we wanted to capture older participants with different views and usage of the internet, to understand whether access to the internet also influences experiences and perspectives. We conducted 3 remote focus groups and focus groups in Manchester and Birmingham. We also conducted face to face individual interviews with older people and paired depths. Given the sensitive nature of the topic, it was important to create a safe space for older people and family members to talk about their experiences. This included personal feelings of shame, embarrassment as well as ongoing feelings of vulnerability and anxiety.

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Case Studies

Flashing Light - Emergency Services Market Research Company

South Yorkshire Violence Reduction Unit Resident Views

The South Yorkshire Violence Reduction Unit (SYVRU) is committed to working with all organisations to raise awareness of trauma and Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs) and encourage improved ways of working in order to better support people across South Yorkshire. This research took a qualitative approach to explore the views, experiences and perspectives or residents. We carefully selected regions based on demographic information and high numbers of reported violent crimes (Doncaster, Rotherham, Barnsley and Sheffield). We worked closely with community organisations across the regions and were able to organise and moderate 12 community workshops. We also conducted individual interviews with some residents from Doncaster who preferred this approach. In total, we spoke to 149 residents.

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Case Studies

Culture-Heritage-Market-Research

Understanding Emotional Engagement with Museums

We were commissioned by the Association of Independent Museums (AIM) and Art Fund to investigate which emotions drive public support for museums, why certain emotions are more powerful than others, and how museums might use these emotions to channel support amongst their communities as we emerge from the pandemic, but continue to face potentially challenging times. The intended output was a research report and toolkit which could be used to support museums to better engage on an emotional level with communities (of place and interest) moving forward and in a more consistent way.

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Case Studies

Transport for West Midlands (TfWM) Cost of Living and Travel Behaviour Change Study 2023

TfWM commissioned M·E·L Research in February 2023 to undertake the study, gathering responses from over 1,000 residents across the West Midlands Combine Authority area, to understand how the cost of living is impacting on people in their travel choices and their awareness of and appetite for alternatives to car usage. Results were representative by local authority area, age, gender and car ownership.

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Case Studies

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Understanding LGBTQIA+ and heterosexual usage and perceptions of dating apps

M·E·L Research provided advice and consultancy on the quantitative questionnaire design and study design, as well as undertaking the fieldwork with potentially hard to reach audiences and providing cleaned data for use in an academic study. The survey, which aimed to collect data on the usage of dating apps during COVID-19 pandemic, the experiences of using the apps, and the impact this usage had on loneliness and resilience, using specialist scales, was delivered via an online methodology to ensure responses were anonymous and candid.

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Case Studies

UNBOXED: Audience profiling, evaluation and willingness to pay for a cultural mega event

‘UNBOXED: Creativity in the UK’ was a programme of public activity intended to celebrate the creativity and interconnectivity between science, technology, maths, engineering and the arts (“STEAM”), delivered through ten large-scale projects, which took place across England, Northern Ireland, Scotland, Wales and online in 2022. Monitoring data shows that UNBOXED engaged a total audience of 20.5 million across the four nations of the UK. We undertook a mixed-method quantitative approach including approx. 5,000 F2F surveys at events, ~6,000 online surveys post-event, and interviews with schools and Commission partners including volunteers and freelancers.

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