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REPORT: FIN 08-035
Report To: Mayor Carl Zehr and Members of Council
Date of Meeting: 2008-04-07
Prepared By: Larry Gordon
Date of Report 2008-04-01
Report No: FIN 08-035
Subject: E08-013 -Consultant Services - Website Customer Insight Research
RECOMMENDATION
That Expression of Interest E08-013, Consultant Services - Website Customer Insight Research, be
awarded to Leger Marketing, Toronto, Ontario at their estimated fee of $55,503., including G.S.T.
BACKGROUND
Over the years, the City of Kitchener and its Enterprises have established an online presence through the
ad hoc development and operation of a number of different websites. In recent months members of
Kitchener City Council, city staff and citizens have all indicated a desire for the city to redesign its main
corporate website, www.kitchener.ca.
City Council has made it clear that the redesign of the city's website should be treated as a priority
project, it should proceed as quickly as possible and most importantly it should focus on the needs of its
end users -our citizens and stakeholders. Staff have heard those comments and are moving forward to
meet those council expectations.
Through growing global trends towards online information and government services, we know that the
city's website is quickly becoming the primary way citizens are getting information about city services
and programs. In the coming years we can anticipate that the website will also become one of our most
powerful customer service tools - providing a growing number of services online to meet citizens
growing expectations for e-government.
The redesign of www.kitchener.ca isexpected to contribute to a number of municipal strategies. Those
strategic drivers include:
Strategic Driver: Benefit of Redesigned Website:
Customer Service Strate
gy Improved stakeholder access to information and online
municipal services.
Plan for a Health Kitchener
y Improved two-way communications and stakeholder
consultations.
Economic Develo meet
p Ability to showcase and attract investors, visitors and talent
Strategy through branding that is more consistent with economic
'
develo meet ob
ectives.
p J
Human Resources Ability to showcase the corporation as an attractive place of
Talent Attraction employment for prospective employees from around the
globe.
Shift towards more online Improved ability to balance traditional print communications
communications
with online Information sharing which will meet growing
citizen expectations.
Recognizing the very significant impact the city's website will have on these corporate strategies and the
fact that it is quickly becoming what could be considered one of the city's basic government services, a
significant level of investment will be required to properly redesign the website so that it is as effective as
possible and so that it remains focused on the end users needs.
REPORT
While City staff and City Council have some general ideas of what stakeholders would like to see in a
redesigned website, all of that stakeholder feedback has been anecdotal to date. While we are aware that
some users of the website find it difficult to navigate and find information, we do not know what it is
about the website that makes navigation difficult, and most importantly, what changes we could make to
the design to improve the users experience on the website.
The City does not currently have a full, detailed and complete understanding of its website audiences,
their needs, their expectations in a municipal website and how they would like to see the website
redesigned to improve their satisfaction with the site. This is a major and fundamental missing piece of
information that is required in order to effective redesign the website so that it is focused on the end users
-our citizens and stakeholders.
As a first and foundational step in the process of redesigning the City's website, it is important to conduct
customer insight research into what information, tools and online services our stakeholders want and
would use on a municipal website. This research, and the information it will collect, will help to ensure
the redesigned website successfully responds to the needs, wants and expectations of our stakeholders; in
the end making the redesigned website more user friendly.
Contrary to what some believe, this type of customer research is not something that just anyone can do.
There is a surveying expertise and high-level of statistical knowledge required to effectively perform this
type of research. The city does not currently have the in-house capacity and expertise to properly and
effectively collect and analyze the data. This type of customer research is similar to other research
performed by an outside firm for Kitchener Utilities.
By engaging the services of Leger Marketing, one of Canada's premier market research companies, the
city will benefit from a significant amount of knowledge, experience and experience in conducting similar
types of website evaluations and research. Using both quantitative (online surveys, analysis of weblogs
from the current website) and qualitative (focus groups and one-on-one interviews with key stakeholders)
data collection methods, Leger Marketing will be able to provide the city with a full and complete
understanding of our website users while focusing on several key stakeholder groups (citizens, staff, city
council and the business community).
Through a program available to Leger Marketing known as WebPerform data will be gathered from
citizens and analyzed on factors such as the quality of the website content, asthetics and how easy the
website is to use. Each of these factors will be comprised of 26 different characteristics asked of the
participating customers. In addition, WebPerform will allow us to compare our site to other municipalities
in an attempt to learn best practices from across the country.
Following the data collection and analysis phase of this project Leger Marketing will provide the city with
a final and detailed report which will summarize and analyze all of the raw data collected, draw
conclusions about the city's website audience and make specific recommendation on how best to redesign
the website to ensure it is focused on what users have told us they want in a site and what would make it a
more effective tool from their perspective.
SELECTION PROCESS
In accordance with Chapter 170 of the Municipal Code pertaining to the Selection of Professional
Services/Consultants, a Consultant's Review Committee was established.
Expressions of Interest were advertised in the Record, on the City of Kitchener web site and on the
Internet through the Ontario Public Buyers Electronic Tendering Information System relative to this
project. Documents were picked up by twelve (12) interested parties. By the closing date of Friday
February 1st, 2008, six (6) responses had been received.
The Review Committee met on Thursday February 14th, 2008 to review the submissions. A shortlist of
four (4) Consultants was selected for further interviews. The Committee elected to interview one (1)
additional Consultant on Wednesday March 19th, 2008.
The Committee elected to award the proj ect to Leger Marketing, Toronto, Ontario.
A listing of the responding parties follows for your reference:
Leger Marketing
Hams/Decima
eSolutions Group
Quarry Integrated Communications
Market Dimensions Inc.
Kem Laurin Consulting
Toronto, ON
Ottawa, ON
Waterloo, ON
Waterloo, ON
Toronto, ON
Kitchener, ON
FINANCIAL IMPLICATIONS
Funding will be provided from index 345365 -Corporate Website
REVENUES
Capital out of Current
EXPENSES
E08-013 $55,503.
Less G.S.T. Rebate $ 26.43.
$52,860.
Redesign of the Corporate ~Vebsite
TOTAL
BALANCE
$0.
$332,524.
$ 52,860.
$279,664.
$332,524.
Any surplus funds remaining at the end of the project will be closed out to the Capital Surplus Account.
CONCLUSION
Awarding this tender to conduct website customer research to Leger Marketing will allow the city to
gather high-quality, in-depth and fundamental information about the needs, wants and expectations and
our website users.
The information gathered by Leger Marketing and the analysis they will perform and provide to the city
can be completed quicker and to a higher quality and level of detail than if this work was completed in-
house.
Most importantly, this website customer research will set the foundation for redesigning the city's website
based on the needs, wants and expectations of our citizens -which will in the end create a more effective,
efficient and satisfactory tool for our citizens to use in gathering city information or accessing city
services.
Staff believe that proceeding to try and redesign the city's website without first gathering this important
customer research data would not be in the best interest of the city and it would not allow us to proceed in
meeting council's objectives of redesigning the website as quickly as possible and keeping the new design
focused on the end user.
Larry Gordon
Director of Purchasing