the Research & Planning Group

RPG (The Research & Planning Group) is a marketing and opinion research firm based in St. Louis, MO. Since 1983, we’ve been helping clients around the world turn information into actionable insights.

If you need assistance with research involving surveys, focus groups, telephone interviews or online survey platforms like Qualtrics, we can help!

Services

Some research agencies specialize in qualitative research, going deep with individual interviews or conducting focus groups. Other research agencies specialize in quantitative research, fielding large surveys to generate statistical data.

RPG can do it all! With our deep expertise and wide range of experience, we can handle projects that are both big or small. Whether you need a handful of high-context interviews or a larger study that will track data for years, we’re here to help you get the information you need.

We’re particularly good at Healthcare Research, B2B Research with physicians, managers or busy executives and community feedback research. We’ve got a strong background in concept testing and segmentation research, and we excel at customer experience studies and sensitive topics. We’ve even got a good handle on artificial intelligence (AI) and understand how it can be used to help the research process!

If you need something more specialized than a standard study, RPG can design it! We have the expertise and experience to conduct research that’s scaled to your informational needs.

Focus Groups

Need a focus group to help you hear the wisdom of the crowd? RPG can help!

Whether you’re looking for traditional focus groups conducted in-person, online focus groups conducted via a video streaming platform or less familiar methods like focus group gangs, RPG has got you covered.

Our professional moderators, top-notch recruiters and experienced team can help you ensure your focus group goes right every time and that you obtain the best possible insights from your study.

B2B and Consumer Interviews

Want to hear more from your key customers, employees, stakeholders, partners or donors? RPG can handle it!

Whether you’re looking for telephone interviews with your key partners , online interviews conducted via a video streaming platform or more personal methods like face to face interviews, RPG can ensure your study goes smoothly. We know how to recruit difficult-to-reach participants and we also know how to maximize the potential for list samples to ensure we reach your desired quota for completes.

Our skilled interview team has decades of experience and knows how to handle even the toughest assignments. And our world-class research team will ensure you’ve got the right design – and the right analysis and ins

Online Surveys

Need some statistical data to help you with strategic planning or decision-making? RPG can make it happen!

Whether you’re looking for consumer panel surveys conducted online, telephone surveys to poll your key audience or something more specialized like a B2B survey, NPS (Net Promoter Score) survey or a customer survey, RPG can handle every step of the process.

We use QuestionPro – a best-in-class online survey platform – to conduct research that can be as simple or complex as you need it to be, and we can also help you if you’re on Qualtrics, Medallia or other platforms like them.

Whether you’re looking for a one-time study or ongoing measurement, we can provide it. And if you need comparative data for your industry, we can help you find it so you know what you’re being measured against!

Our incredible research team is trained to build surveys that go beyond the superficial and to conduct analysis to uncover actionable insights. And because you need those results immediately, we can build a customized dashboard and a dynamic report so you can have the data as soon as possible!

Custom Studies

Our team of expert researchers can help guide you through the whys and hows of good research design and ensure a custom fit for the information you need.

We’ve worked in dozens of industries on thousands of custom-built studies!

About Us

Founded in 1983 by David Rich, RPG has conducted research on behalf of hundreds of client organizations around the world.

Our President and Principal Investigator, Sean Jordan, not only is an expert in both qualitative and quantitative methods of research and skilled at using modern technological techniques but also is a member of the faculty at the Southern Illinois University School of Business teaching emerging insights research professionals.

We pride ourselves in being able to handle research projects of any size and scope from start to finish.

Our Clients

We’ve worked for a wide variety of clients – so many we won’t list them all! But here are some of the clients we’ve served since our founding.

Healthcare

We’ve been a partner to the healthcare industry throughout our history, and we’ve helped many hospitals and health care systems:

Develop their marketing campaigns
Better serve their patients and improve patient experience
Explore new business opportunities and expand service lines
Segment their patient pool
Grow their referral network
Better engage their physicians and nurses
Survey their staff

And so much more!

Organ Procurement Organizations (OPOs)

We’ve worked with 40 organ procurement agencies and have several studies that are designed to help OPOs to maximize their donation potential and provide exceptional services to their partner hospitals and donor families! Some of our studies have helped OPOs to:

Build stronger relationships with physicians, APPs and nursing staff with our Hospital Partners Study
Improve the services provided to donor families during and after the donation experience with our Donor Family Study
Search for new ways to engage transplant physicians and nurse coordinators with our Transplant Partners Study
Enhance the services being provided to tissue processing partners with our Tissue Processors Study
Understand the needs of funeral home directors and morticians with our Funeral Home Partners Study
Share emerging ideas with the industry through our Best Practices Summit
Participate in one of our Education and Training Seminars

And so much more!

Credit Unions, Banks and Insurance Companies

We’ve been a partner to the financial services industry throughout our history, and we’ve helped many financial institutions:

Develop their marketing campaigns
Enhance their branding
Develop new logos and brand names
Build rewards programs
Measure member/customer satisfaction with their services
Build employee engagement
Grow their wealth management business
Identify best practices for top-notch service

And so much more!

Consumer Packaged Goods Companies

We’ve been a partner to the many CPG (consumer packaged goods) companies throughout our history and helped these partners to:

Develop clear, coherent packaging
Search for opportunities to expand products to new markets
Identify pain points and conduct emotional laddering exercises
Test out concepts and prototypes with highly knowledgeable participants
Brainstorm new ideas for products and use cases
Test creative concepts designed to bring new products to market

And so much more!

Insights

As researchers, our job is to stay informed whenever things are happening, and we work hard to share the information we’re uncovering whenever we can!

We regularly post articles, videos and other content on topics ranging from AI to technology to healthcare to general consumer insights, and we’re always keeping our ears and eyes open for information that can make a difference to our partners and colleagues.

We also regularly post up daily statistics and infographics on our social channels – in addition to the ones below, you can find them on BlueSky and LinkedIn!