Stakeholder and Reputation Research

Knowing how others see you is crucial for so many reasons – planning your communications, developing marketing strategies and improving the services you deliver. In thinking about your reputation – and what you can do about it – whose opinion matters, what do you need to know and how do you find out what people think?

Effective and timely research will help you to:

• measure the strength of your reputation amongst stakeholder groups – as a snapshot and over time
• find out what people view as your strengths and weaknesses? How do you compare with others?
• work out who to communicate with, about what, when and how?
• better understand the context you are operating in and what you are being judged on
• develop reputation and communications strategies – what do stakeholders want from you?
• understand the policy landscape – what do partners in central, regional and local government and other opinion formers think you should be prioritising?

Depending on your type of organisation and your specific needs, you might want to hear from any of the following:

• patients, their carers and families
• patient groups
• the local population
• GPs
• commissioners
• other stakeholders e.g. community groups, local MPs, local media.

A number of different methodologies will be appropriate, both quantitative and qualitative. For example, a quantitative telephone survey with local residents will allow you to measure awareness and perceptions of your organisation, identify your perceived strengths and weaknesses and compare yourselves to others.

A qualitative approach might be more suitable if you want to explore views of the public or other stakeholders in more depth – to understand the strength of their feeling towards you and the drivers of their views. You can explore what they think of the relationship you currently have – and the relationship they would like to have with you.