The Power of Football!

Football is Scotland’s number one sport – both in terms of participation but also in terms of the numbers who watch the game.  Per head of population, football remains more popular in Scotland than in any other European country.

The Scottish Football Association is charged with governing the game – it exists to promote, foster and develop the game at all levels in Scotland.

But of course football evolves and changes quickly, and it is important that our Governing body evolves at a similar pace.  Last year, the Scottish FA published The Power of Football, a strategic plan designed to improve the national game at all levels up to and including the FIFA World Cup in 2030.  This first stage covered the 2021-2025 period and it mapped out the association’s journey within six key pillars of activity, each with a key overriding objective:

• Qualify consistently and compete in major tournaments

• Accelerate the growth of girls’ and women’s football

• Inspire the nation through lifelong participation

• Deliver a world-leading coach education and development system

• Modernise the Home of Scottish Football

• Connect Scottish football’s diverse communities

You can read the strategy in detail here.

The 56 Degree Insight team have been working with the Scottish FA over a number of years to better understand the requirements of all of its stakeholders – from players and coaches through to spectators of the national teams as well as club football.

Last year, the Scottish FA and UEFA commissioned us to undertake a comprehensive qualitative study amongst football supporters to better understand how they felt about the Scottish FA and its role. How could it improve and where should it be focusing?  This fed into the development of the Power of Football strategy, and we have been delighted to work with the Scottish FA again over the last couple of months in testing various creative development routes amongst similar audiences of supporters.  A number of focus groups were held with fans across the country and the results will help the Scottish FA and its media agency to fine tune the materials which will bring the real power of football to life, highlighting all of its benefits across social, mental and physical health, inclusivity and diversity and football’s ability to bring people and communities together.

To find out more about the work we have undertaken about our national sport, please just get in touch

Assisting Anglian Water to help their customers to love every drop

As an essential service which homes and businesses can’t live without, customer service is essential in the water sector. Yet, the services delivered by water companies are taken for granted by most of us and our interactions with water companies tend to be few and far between.

Indeed, if asked to provide our opinion on our water company it’s likely that many of us might opt for the Don’t Know option or gravitate towards the middle of the scale if presented with the classic Net Promoter Score rating question. Feelings of indifference are common when it comes to water and many of us don’t have a full appreciation of the full scope of services provided by and supported by our water company.

However, although levels of customer engagement tend to be low, given the critical nature of the services they provide, water companies can’t afford to ignore customer experience. In England and Wales the regulator, Ofwat, measures household customer’s levels of satisfaction using C-MeX (Customer Measure of Experience). The results of the surveys which feed into this measure are taken very seriously by all of the water companies, not least because those companies which perform above average are rewarded financially while those performing below par are penalised.

During the last year we’ve been delighted to be working with Anglian Water to help them to tackle the issues of low customer engagement with the sector and to identify the best ways for them to boost levels of customer satisfaction.Recognising how many people take the water that comes through their tap for granted, Anglian Water have an ambition to change how people think and feel about their brand, moving from a position where people have little or no interest to one where the organisation and its work feels more relevant to them and their communities. The advertisement below is an example of how they are seeking to do this with the key message that “Water is our business, but there is so much more we do for the people, communities and environment we look after.”

During the last year we’ve helped Anglian Water to gain valuable insights from a range of data sources available to them including their quarterly brand and communications tracking and the data available from the Ofwat surveys which drive the all-important C-MeX score.

Our work is supporting Anglian Water by making the most of the data collected from these existing surveys, helping them to move from a position of simply tracking satisfaction and communication metrics to one where they have a clearer understanding of the actions needed to become more meaningful to and appreciated by customers.

If you’d like to find out more about our work in utilities, brand and communications or customer experience research please get in touch.