Focus Group – First-time Visitors to PBGC’s Web site

ABBREVIATED SUPPORTING STATEMENT

AGENCY:     Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation

TITLE:          Focus Group – First-time Visitors to PBGC’s Web site

STATUS:       Generic ICR under Customer Service Focus Groups and Surveys

            1212-0053 (expires 12/31/2009)

CONTACT:  Thomas H. Gabriel (202) 326-4223 x3898

1.  Need for the collection.   

This focus group will help PBGC improve its customer service by enhancing its understanding of how first-time visitors to PBGC’s Web site, www.pbgc.gov, can best be served.  Responses to the collection will inform PBGC of what first-time visitors expect and help PBGC meet those expectations. 

PBGC has found that about half of the persons who access its Web site are pension plan participants who are doing so for the first time and further that first-time users are among the least-satisfied of all PBGC Web site users.  Typically, individuals visit PBGC’s Web site for the first time because their pension plan has terminated and PBGC has become the statutory trustee of the plan.  They tend to be anxious to learn about the effect the termination and trusteeship will have on their pension benefits.

PBGC wants to design its Web site in such a way that it is easy for first-time visitors to find the information available to them, and to know what information is not available, so that they don’t waste time searching for what is not there.

2.  Intended use.  PBGC plans to use the responses for the sole purpose of improving customer service.  PBGC will protect the confidentiality of the survey responses to the extent provided by law. 

3.  Description of respondents.  The 48 focus group participants will be a sample of pension plan participants in plans recently trusteed by the PBGC.

4.  Information collection procedures.  Approximately 200 participants in the terminated pension plans will be contacted by telephone to be screened for participation in the focus group.  Sixteen will be invited to each of the four focus groups; twelve will actually participate in the focus group.  A PBGC contactor will then conduct the focus group.  The contractor is Issues and Answers Network, Inc., of Virginia Beach, VA.  The focus groups will be scheduled for late September 2009 in two areas: Lynchburg/Radford, VA, and Paramus/Paterson, NJ. The vendor will arrange facilities once dates are finalized. These locations were selected because of their large concentration of PBGC participants and beneficiaries in pay, future pay, or unknown status, in recently terminated plans (last 2-8 months).

5.  Expected response rate.  Based on the contractor’s experience with response rates for a focus group of this kind, PBGC expects twelve of the sixteen invited participants (75%) to show up at the focus group.

6.  Justification for incentive.  An incentive payment of $25 will be paid to persons who are invited to participate in the focus group and who show up.  Light refreshments will be provided (soda, iced tea, cookies and snacks).

7.  Estimated burden.  The telephone screening is expected to involve only a de minimis burden of several minutes.  The focus group session is scheduled for two hours, with another hour estimated for travel to and from the focus group.  For all four focus groups, the total burden is estimated to be 144 hours (4 x 12 x 3 = 144).

8.  Methodology.

            As a focus group, this collection does not involve use of statistical methodology.