BUSI 331 Week 8 Marketing Research Report Part 4: Project Submission Example

Riverbend Credit Union Mobile App Study, Part 4: Results, Conclusions and Recommendations

Assembling the Complete Study

The final document combines the title page, the research problem and literature review from Part 1, the quantitative approach, methodology and questionnaire from Part 2 and the three tables and figure from Part 3, followed by the new Results and Conclusions and Recommendations sections, the references, Appendix I with the questionnaire, Appendix II with the raw coded data and Appendix III with an additional chart of bill payment use by branch distance.

Results

The final dataset holds 162 completed questionnaires from the 1,000 members invited.

Research question 1 asked how useful and easy to use members find the app's transaction features. Usefulness was not the sticking point: even members who had never deposited by phone rated the time savings at 3.6 of 5, against 4.4 among those who had. Ease of learning showed a larger gap, 3.1 for non-depositors and 4.2 for depositors.

Research question 2 asked which concerns discourage use. Fear and uncertainty separated the groups most sharply. Non-depositors rated their worry about a lost or rejected check at 3.8, a point and a half above depositors, and their confidence about when money would be usable at 2.5, well below depositors' 3.9. Preference for a human teller ran high among non-depositors (3.7) and low among depositors (2.1). Concern about information security differed less, 3.4 compared with 2.6.

Research question 3 asked whether use differs by member characteristics. Deposit use fell from 53 percent among respondents aged 18 to 34 to 33 percent among those aged 35 to 54 and 14 percent among those 55 and over. Bill payment followed the same pattern at higher levels, consistent with the unified theory's expectation that age moderates technology use (Venkatesh et al., 2003). Distance from a branch showed a smaller relationship: members living more than 15 miles away were somewhat more likely to deposit through the app than those living within 5 miles, a pattern shown in Appendix III, suggesting convenience matters but less than age and confidence.

Asked what would change their behavior, a majority of non-depositors picked a confirmation text (55 percent), nearly half picked faster availability of funds (47 percent), and roughly a third or fewer picked training or staff help.

Conclusions and Recommendations

The management decision was whether to redesign the app, teach members to use it, or do neither. The findings point to a third option: reassure members about what happens after they deposit. The barrier is not the button; it is the silence after the button is pressed. Members, including non-users, see the app as useful, so a full redesign is not justified. The strongest barriers are worry about lost deposits and uncertainty about fund availability, consistent with research showing perceived risk drives rejection of mobile banking (Laukkanen, 2016).

Three recommendations follow, in order of cost.

• 1. Send an automatic text and in-app message confirming each deposit when it is received and again when funds are available. This addresses the largest gap in the data at low cost.
• 2. Show the expected availability date on the deposit screen before the member confirms, removing the uncertainty non-users reported.
• 3. Offer older members brief, in-branch demonstrations, since use is lowest among members 55 and over and they visit branches most.

The credit union should test the first two changes with a random half of app users for three months and compare deposit use and branch deposit volume between groups, so the decision rests on measured effects rather than survey intentions (Malhotra, 2015).

Each recommendation can be carried out within a quarter. The confirmation text requires only a change to the app's notification settings and a message template; showing the availability date requires a small change to the deposit screen; and branch demonstrations can be scheduled during quieter weekday hours using existing staff. None requires the full redesign the credit union had been considering, which makes the decision lower in risk as well as in cost.

The study has limits. The 16 percent response rate means respondents may be more engaged than other app users, and usage was self-reported. Because the comparisons describe association, not cause, the recommended test is the appropriate next step before full rollout.

References

Laukkanen, T. (2016). Consumer adoption versus rejection decisions in seemingly similar service innovations: The case of the Internet and mobile banking. Journal of Business Research, 69(7), 2432-2439. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jbusres.2016.01.013

Malhotra, N. K. (2015). Essentials of marketing research: A hands-on orientation. Pearson.

Venkatesh, V., Morris, M. G., Davis, G. B., & Davis, F. D. (2003). User acceptance of information technology: Toward a unified view. MIS Quarterly, 27(3), 425-478. https://doi.org/10.2307/30036540