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Qualitative Market Research – Depth Interviews and Focus Groups
By: Susan Kramper

Every business organization knows that the market changes each day. There are competitions that crop up and income opportunities that float and sink. A company's way of determining these changes and the strategies that can make it deal with the situation is through market research. Market research is divided in two methods – quantitative and qualitative research. When the research techniques entail numbers and quantifiable data, they fall under the qualitative method. Data that looks into processes and the understanding of consumer thoughts and behavior fall under qualitative method. For this article, qualitative market research will be given focus.

The purpose of qualitative market research is to get an in-depth knowledge of the behaviors of consumers and their reasons for having such behaviors. It focuses and investigates on the how and why of consumers' decision-making processes. This does not put concentration to how many or how much do consumers spend on a particular product.

Here is an idea of how the technique is done:

You are a buyer of a particular product and an interviewer stops you to ask why you are purchasing that very product. You begin to answer the questions and give your thoughts and opinions. In this example, you are the respondent and the person who asks you is the researcher. Everything you tell the researcher is the data being gathered in qualitative market research. Your reasons for buying and feedback on the product are what are needed in this technique. Unlike quantitative research, no fixed questions are used in this method; interviewers use topic guidelines instead.

The techniques used in qualitative market research are slowly increasing because of the changing needs of business organizations and the environment. Nevertheless, there are two methods that are most commonly used by companies and organizations. They are depth interviews and focus group discussions.

Depth interviews are indeed the most popular method implemented by firms. These are done through face-to-face interview between an interviewer and respondent. In a depth interview, a researcher asks a series of questions to the respondent to understand his circumstances, thoughts and behavior. The researcher often goes to the workplace of the respondent to gain familiarity with the business environment and culture of the latter. Findings on the particular research are extracted from several interviews made to a number of respondents. Every thought of respondents contribute to the result of the research.

Focus groups are conducted differently. They entail having to come up with a group of targeted respondents and a group leader or moderator. The moderator starts the interview by asking questions to each respondent to draw out answers and create a discussion. The members of the focus group are the ones that will provide helpful information to the researcher. They shall be the basis of the wants and needs of customers. They tell why consumers behave the way they do and how they arrive at certain market decisions. Focus groups are an effective way to conduct research, but are highly expensive to arrange.

Article Source: http://www.ebooks-health.com/articles

Amanda Tschoepe is the Director of Customer Experience for Focus Pointe Global. She has more than 10 years experience as a customer service expert, focusing on focus groups, and has spent the past 3 years applying that experience to respondent issues and concerns out of Focus Pointe Global.

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