Practitioner Focus Group Moderator’s Guide
Thank you for agreeing to participate in our study. The purpose of this study is to learn about your experiences with PBGC. The ultimate goal is to improve PBGC’s service to you.
Paperwork Reduction Act notice: The questions used in this focus group session have been approved by the Office of Management and Budget under OMB Control No. 1212-0066 (expires 08/31/2017). An agency may not conduct or sponsor, and a person is not required to respond to, a collection of information unless a currently valid OMB control number has been obtained. Your focus group participation is estimated to take 90 minutes, and your participation is voluntary.
Confidentiality: Your responses will be used by PBGC solely for customer service improvement and will be treated with the confidentiality provided by the Privacy Act and the Freedom of Information Act. That is, your responses will be treated in a private manner unless their disclosure is otherwise compelled by law, e.g., by FOIA. None of your responses will require your providing personal information that could identify you.
During this session we will explore various aspects of PBGC’s service and invite your feedback.
We are recording this webinar so that we can return to it as needed and make use of all of the comments you provide.
I would like to ask you to be as honest as you can. This information will not be shared with anyone other than PBGC, and will be used by PBGC solely to help us improve service.
Here are some rules for our discussion today: I’m interested in what each of you has to say, so I would like only one person to speak at a time. This is a discussion, so feel free to comment on what others say. Just remember that everyone’s opinion counts, and there are no right or wrong answers.
I have just a few housekeeping items to go over. First, although we do not anticipate any technical difficulties, I would ask your patience with me and with the technology should we encounter any challenges today. Second, since there are several of us on the phone, I’ll ask you to minimize any background noise and mute your phone when you are not speaking so everyone can clearly hear the discussion. Also, if you have an emergency and need to step away for a moment, please use your mute button instead of placing us on hold so we won’t get “on-hold” music. Last, please jot down these two numbers in case you get disconnected or have other technical difficulties during our session. [1-800-xxx-xxxx number to call back if disconnected and 1-800-xxx-xxxx number for tech support] Thanks very much for your help.
Before we get started on our main topics, I would like us to get to know each other a little better so we can see the various perspectives represented at this session.
I’ll start. I’m Phyllis Gaskins. I work for the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation’s Quality Management Department. My work deals primarily with collecting and analyzing customer satisfaction feedback so that we can improve service. I am not an expert on pension practitioner matters, so I may ask you questions throughout the session to help me better understand your comments.
[introduce other PBGC attendees, if applicable]
Now let’s go around and introduce ourselves. Please say your name, where you work, what you do, and what your typical interactions with PBGC have been. It’s fine to use first name only and to refer to your company in a generic way, such as a “large healthcare provider” or a “mid-sized actuarial firm,” for example. XX, let’s start with you.
Okay, great. Now we’re going to dive into our main topics. For several topics, I will ask you to assign a quick 1 – 10 rating, then we’ll talk about what you like and what could be improved. First we’re going to cover some general customer satisfaction topics
First, let’s get a feel for your general satisfaction with PBGC from a practitioner perspective. Please be honest. On a scale of 1 – 10, where 1 is “poor” and 10 is “excellent,” what is your overall satisfaction with the PBGC?
What have you been especially pleased with? Are there any ways PBGC has exceeded your expectations? What more could PBGC do to meet your expectations?
Now the other side of the coin: What have you been especially displeased with? Have we ever let you down?
Okay, now let’s get a 1 – 10 rating for how well PBGC provides customer support, for example, providing filing assistance or answering regulatory questions.
What’s working well about PBGC’s support?
What could be improved?
All right, now let’s think about filing with PBGC, whether that’s premium, standard termination, reportable event filings, or other filings. Think about the information you provide and how and when, as well as how and when you make any payments. Please give a 1 – 10 rating for the filing process. If you’ve had different experiences with any of those different processes, feel free to give separate ratings; just note which is which, such as “9 for premium filing and 10 for reportable event filing.”
So, what’s working well about filing with PBGC?
You may be aware of a number of changes in recent years that affect your PBGC premium filings, several of which were suggested by customers such as you. For example,
in My PAA you can now see all in-process premium filings, whether screen-prepared or imported filings,
you can search for a particular plan in your account, and
a progress bar at the top of the screen helps you know where you are in the e-filing process.
In addition to enhancing My PAA,
PBGC eliminated estimated filings for large plans starting plan year 2014. All plans now need to file only the comprehensive filing.
[If time allows, you might also mention these last three changes.] Starting plan year 2015, all plans will have the same due date based on their plan year beginning date.
For 2014 filings, we made PAY.GOV available for making secure electronic premium payments to PBGC at no cost to you.
We also added new navigation features for pbgc.gov: These were highlighted in a “What’s New for Practitioners” item shown on our website.
How have changes in the last few years affected the process?
Have changes in the last few years improved the process? In what ways?
What do you find most challenging about PBGC’s filing requirements?
What would you most like to change about PBGC’s filing process?
Okay, let’s switch gears and talk about how you communicate with PBGC. You may be aware of email addresses such as [email protected], [email protected], and [email protected], or you may have used the 800 number. Regardless of the channel you use, how easy is it to get in touch with the right person at PBGC, on a 1 – 10 scale?
What’s working well?
What could work better?
Now consider how PBGC communicates with you, whether that’s by phone, email, or letter, and including information you might subscribe to, such as What’s New for Practitioners, or interest rate updates. How effective are PBGC’s communications with you, on a scale of 1 – 10?
What do you like or find helpful?
What could be improved? Is there information you’re not getting, or not getting in time? Is anything unclear or confusing?
Thank you for that great feedback. Now we’re going to look at some more specific aspects of the online experience.
We’re going to turn our attention to PBGC’s online premium filing tool for practitioners, My Plan Administration Account, or My PAA.
First of all, if you have used My PAA for premium filings, which of the three methods have you used: the My PAA data-entry and editing screens, importing filing(s) into the My PAA screens, and/or uploading completed filing(s)?
[show My PAA home page] This is the My PAA home page, the first one you’d see after logging in. Tell me a little about this page from your perspective, both the pluses and minuses.
[show My PAA current plan page] Next let’s take a look at the current plan page. How does this page work for you? What could be improved?
Okay, now I’d like you to think about navigation within My PAA, including the pages we’ve looked at, but also any others you’ve used. By navigation, I mean, where you click to move around the application and complete tasks. I’d like to hear where, if anywhere, you get stuck or confused.
Where is navigation working especially well in guiding you to where you need to go?
Is there anything you currently do in My PAA that you think could work better?
Is there anything you can’t do in My PAA but would like to?
[show mock-up of new My PAA launch page] Before we move on, I’d like to show you a some changes we are considering for three key screens in My PAA and get your thoughts on them. This is a potential new look for the My PAA launch page. What are your reactions, as far as the layout and appearance? Does it have everything you need? Anything you’d change?
[show proposed My PAA home page] This is a proposed new look for the My PAA home page, the first one you’d see after logging in. What do you think of this proposed change compared with the current home page? What do you like or dislike?
[show proposed My PAA current plan page] Last, let’s look at a potential change to the current plan page. What are your thoughts on this version, as far as the pros and cons?
Okay, that was lots of great feedback on My PAA. Next, I’d like you to look at a few key pages from the PBGC public website and think about how you use them or might use them.
[show pbgc.gov home page] This is our home page. Do you use this? What here is of interest to you?
[show Practitioners page] Now we’re looking at the Practitioners Page. What on this page would you look at? Is anything missing?
[show What’s New for Practitioners page] Here’s What’s New for Practitioners. Have you visited this page? How do you use it? Do you subscribe to it?
[show filing reminders page] Here’s where you can sign up for filing reminders. Were you aware of this service? Do you use it? Are there reasons you don’t?
[show interest rates page] This is the interest rates page. Do you use this? Do you subscribe to it? What could be improved here?
[show premium payment instructions] Now we’re looking at the online premium payment instructions. Do you use these? Do you know how to find them? What could be improved?
[show standard termination instructions] These are the instructions for filing a standard termination. Have you used these? Do you know how to find them? What could be improved?
Do you bookmark or mark any PBGC web pages as “favorites”? If so, which ones?
What else do you use PBGC’s website for?
What would you like to be able to do or find on the website that you currently can’t? Any other suggestions for improvements?
We’ve talked about a lot of topics today, and we’re almost done. I have two more questions I want to ask.
First, what else, that you haven’t shared already today, would you like PBGC to know?
And now for the last question, and this is one I ask at every focus group I conduct, what is the one thing you’d most want us to remember as a result of today’s discussion?
Thank you all so much for the time you gave us today and your honesty and enthusiasm. We’ll be giving serious consideration to all your comments as we look at ways we can improve our service to you. Meanwhile, if you later think of something you wished you’d mentioned today, please send it to [email protected].
| File Type | application/vnd.openxmlformats-officedocument.wordprocessingml.document |
| Author | Diana Waldron |
| File Modified | 0000-00-00 |
| File Created | 2021-01-27 |