5/27/2023 0 Comments Focus groups![]() Can uncover unsuspected problems and solutions.Relatively inexpensive to conduct and can generate a great deal of customer information.Provide fast turnaround time for acquiring knowledge.Excellent for gathering information regarding customer attitudes and opinions and learning exactly how internal and external customers use your work, products and services.Insights that go beyond a list of demographics, attitudes, and behavior.Although focus groups may only represent a statistically small sample size of a population they offer these additional benefits: ![]() The weakness of conducting focus groups is that they use a statistically small sample size population and the attitudes and opinions expressed by a single or a few focus groups may not be representative of the population as a whole. The Benefitsįocus group research methods are an excellent method for gathering in-depth information about customer attitudes and opinions regarding the use of a company’s product or service. The new picture of the consumer is a possibility to consider and to explore further through quantitative studies with larger samples and structured questionnaires. We have to be open and receptive while observing respondents: What stands out about these people? What is the dominant feeling and impression they leave behind? The answer is to consider what comes out of qualitative research as hypothesis, not absolute fact. In addition, what is important and relevant in one category (how people dress or their energy level, for instance) may be meaningless in another. Qualitative research allows us to see in consumers what they themselves may not be aware of and, therefore, what they cannot report in straightforward questioning. These observations often cannot easily be formalized and packaged into quantitative studies. ![]() Without answers, client companies don't know how to communicate with their markets or how to design products for them. The company may not even know why its customers buy the product or service, or why non-customers are avoiding it. What clients are missing is their customers' mindsets, what they feel, what motivates them, how they see themselves. This information is both crucial and incomplete - it's not alive or dynamic. In other cases, they already have a demographic profile of their customers, for instance, information about age, income, geographic area, occupation, and children in the home. In some cases, there is a total information vacuum, and qualitative research is the first step in learning about the customers. When companies start to ask these questions, they have varying degrees of knowledge. What kinds of people are your customers? How do they talk? How do they think? How do they see themselves? How do they live? How do they feel about your product? How should you talk to them? What do they want and need? Finding the answers to questions like these is the primary reason why focus groups and in-depth interviews are used. ![]() A trained moderator asks a group to focus on a particular topic and facilitates an open-ended, free-flowing discussion regarding an existing or proposed service offering. Focus groups are informal loosely- structured customer interviews with groups of roughly 8 to 12 participants. Lisa Boughton What is a focus group research method?įocus groups are one of the most effective and most frequently used research methods for collecting qualitative data about customer attitudes and perceptions.
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