Express Healthcare Staffing
THE SITUATION
Express Employment Professionals is a leading staffing and temp agency, running on a franchise model. Already strong in industrial and clerical occupations, they wanted to grow their business in healthcare, especially nursing.
OUR CONTRIBUTION
Express brought us in to research nurses, because our work with Welle and Hikma had built deep empathy with healthcare staff. We interviewed travel and per diem nurses working in 12 states, across levels: licensed practical nurses, registered nurses, and nurse practitioners. We learned about how they feel about their identity, how they choose their jobs, and how they interact with other nurses. And within this ecosystem, we uncovered their expectations of agencies.
THE BENEFITS
We delivered a deep understanding of nurse culture, unmet needs, and the role agencies play today. That gave Express a basis for services competitors don’t offer. While competitors focused on platforms, technology, and medical expertise, Express chose human connection and local knowledge - knowing its customers at a deeper level.
Welle
THE SITUATION
A company called NAPPI asked for a website redesign. We insisted on following our process to understand why, and determine how to help them succeed.
OUR CONTRIBUTION
NAPPI trains medical workers to protect themselves and their patients from violence in the healthcare workplace. After a workshop with its leaders, we followed our learning agenda to nurses and administrators at healthcare systems, to NAPPI’s Master Trainers - some of them former nurses - and to an analysis of the competition. Healthcare sees 4x the workplace violence of other industries, and 1 in 8 nurses in the US has been assaulted at work. Competitors taught physical defense, restraints, and intervention. NAPPI taught behavioral awareness, management, and prevention. The system was so respected, and the trainers so well liked, that nurses defended the brand whenever new employees questioned the name - NAPPI sounds like a hair insult or a British diaper. To grow its public image and client base, the company needed a rebrand. The problem ran deeper than the rhymes: NAPPI stood for Non-Abusive Psychological and Physical Intervention, but its trauma-informed program was far more than reactive “intervention”. It was proactive management, and that was what set NAPPI apart. The name had to point that way. We landed on Welle - a healthy, calm-sounding name with a unique spelling drawn from the German word for “wave”. Then we executed the whole rebrand: parking lot signs, trainer uniforms, educational materials online and off. And of course, the website.
THE BENEFITS
Before working with us, NAPPI won business by reputation alone. After the rebrand, they went outbound - email marketing, trade shows, and more. When the pandemic overwhelmed healthcare workers, Welle could turn to new customers, like museums struggling to enforce masking policies. The brand investment let them carry that trust into new markets and adapt as conditions changed. Today, Welle continues to serve hospital systems as their primary clientele.
Fidelity
THE SITUATION
An intrapreneur at Fidelity saw that the company’s digital security and server capacity could support a secure online storage service.
OUR CONTRIBUTION
We helped position the offering and bring it to market. Customer research and market analysis showed that secure online storage wasn’t enough, because anyone could copy it. Fidelity’s longevity outlasts any cloud company, so the service could be positioned as part of a complete family transition plan - one built to outlast generations. FidSafe was born. It has beneficiary settings like a financial services account, and it guides customers on the documents their successors will need. The website, app, and promotions across other Fidelity properties all reinforce that value proposition.
THE BENEFITS
FidSafe is a valuable adjacent service to Fidelity’s core business, and it starts conversations between Fidelity account holders and their adult children. Those conversations lead to better preparedness and a smoother handoff of the relationship to the next generation. The result: intergenerational customer and asset retention.