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External Consultations: Client Focus Groups

In November 2022, RoDG conducted eight research focus groups across Canada with 10 participating members in each group.

Study participants were recruited to provide perspectives from a diverse set of disabilities including:

Physical

(including mobility and dexterity)

Cognitive

(including neurodiversity, mental health and learning disabilities)

Sensory

(vision, hearing and speech)

Six of the eight studies focused on a particular RBC service or offering:

Mortgage pre-approval process

Opening a personal bank account

In-branch account switch

Signing up for the Registered Disability Savings Plan (RDSP)

Using the RBC Mobile app

Personal banking at RBC

  • Two studies focused on personal banking experiences across other Canadian financial institutions and the contents of their accessibility pages.
  • In each study, 10 participants were asked to use a specific RBC service or offering and anonymously share their user experience.
  • For studies that included a comparison of product/service offerings and a purchase, participants were given one to two weeks to complete their activities and were asked to take notes about their experience.
  • For studies intended to track user experience over time, such as the RBC Mobile app study, participants were given three weeks to use the app. Participants were asked to keep a diary about their experiences throughout this period, as well as attend a three-hour focus group to provide their feedback.

The following accommodations were made available to study participants:

ASL interpreters

Typing of all questions in chat boxes and management of chat for comments

Auto-captioning

One-on-one interviews for those who preferred non-group settings.

  • General barriers identified on RBC’s public-facing websites include:

    • Screen reader compatibility
    • Information overload (challenging for those with cognitive disabilities)
    • Lack of accessible card features (challenging for those with visual impairment)
    • Perceived attitudes of some customer service advisors
    • Some physical accessibility challenges at retail branches
  • Notably, participants had a favourable view of RBC’s Registered Disability Savings Plan (RDSP) product offering, mobile banking app, website and opening an account process.

Employee Consultations

  • In alignment with the principle “nothing without us”, and to have a clear understanding of the potential barriers employees with disabilities are experiencing, we held employee consultations in 2022 and into 2023.
  • We conducted a survey that was open to all employees, and received over 1,600 responses, which provided insights into how to identify, prevent and remove potential barriers in employment.
  • Two virtual consultation sessions held in March and April 2023 helped us better understand the barriers raised and explore potential solutions.

Internal Subject Matter Experts

  • Members and partners of the Accessibility Office held conversations with: (i) Internal subject matter experts in various functional groups; (ii) Employee resource groups (ERGs); (iii) Corporate Citizenship teams on the key priority areas, which helped us assess our current practices and how we can continue to remove barriers for Persons with Disabilities.