Document T042

Market Study Concerning Express Service, Mail Delivery, 1P1P Policy and Other Topics

Report presented to the Canadian Passport Office, July 1999

The Passport Office was considering the feasibility of modifying its product offering on three fronts: first, the adoption of the "one person one passport" (1p1p) principle whereby children could not be listed as an annex to their parent's passport but would possess their own passport; second, billing to the client of the postal return of the passport; and, third, express service within 24 or 48 hours.

In each case, the product change associates a benefit with a cost: more security from applying the 1p1p principle versus the cost of the additional passport; fewer formalities and a smaller time investment from the postal return versus the monetary cost of the return; fast turn around from the express service versus incremental costs. The full analysis of the market reaction to each product change involves more than the simple analysis of price sensitivity however. It must also include the reaction of clients as citizens and tax payers, in view of the monopoly enjoyed by the Passport Office.

This market study was designed to be used both as a product development tool and as a policy analysis tool. It is based on a solid telephone survey methodology (involving 1,400 individuals) presented in Chapter 2. The main results are provided in Chapter 3 for each new product of policy direction, in addition to information on the idea of a passport card. Additional results, presented in Chapter 4, deal with feedback on service and service expectations. This report focuses on product-specific results. Another report will present the results of multivariate analyses which provide valuable insights into the structure of client preferences with regard to a variety of product and service features.

142 pages, 711k [PDF format]

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