When Qualitative Research Is the Best Choice
So you’ve made the decision to do some market research. Now, here comes the tricky part… what kind of research do you need? Qualitative, quantitative, traditional, digital, hybrid, observational, in situ… the choices and jargon can quickly become overwhelming.
In this blog, we will focus on understanding qualitative research. Qualitative research at its highest level is talking to people to find out what they think. This involves collecting and analyzing non-numerical data like comments, text, video, or audio to understand concepts, opinions, or experiences.
What we at Inquisitive love about qualitative (and the reason we specialize in it) is the ability to uncover the thoughts and feelings behind initial responses. To discover the “why” behind the “what” and use what we learn as we go to shape the research process in real time.
We often see clients jump to the conclusion that what they need is a quantitative survey, but here are four situations where qualitative research delivers its strongest ROI:
When looking to improve a customer experience. What’s gonna make beer-loving vacationers stop by your brewery instead of the one down the road? Tasty drinks, for sure. But you might also learn through customer interviews that pet-friendliness is a key part of the decision, so make sure you’ve got lots of water bowls available and maybe your next social campaign features pups enjoying your beer garden.
When you need to get to the right question. What’s the preferred communication channel of your front line employees? You might be inclined to deploy a survey here, but your data is only as good as the choices you include. If you learn in a few up-front employee interviews that no one even knows the CEO has a newsletter, “How would you rate the CEO newsletter?” can be converted into “What would make you most likely to read the CEO newsletter?” allowing you to collect more actionable data.
When you’re looking for an answer to “why.” Why aren’t your customers showing up at the 2:00 pool party your hotel offers to families? Through focus groups or interviews you might discover that parents prefer to hit the pool at 4:00 when the UV index is lower and they won’t have to apply sunscreen to their squirmy toddlers.
When you need to better understand the problem you’re solving. What is preventing your organization from innovating? In-depth interviews with leaders from various service lines or functions can reveal opportunities that otherwise would have stayed hidden by the complexity of the organization.
Qualitative research requires the ability to listen carefully and ask the questions that will get to the root causes and motivations. It works especially well when trying to innovate, moving into a new space (where you don’t have much historical knowledge) or seeking to understand your audience’s unmet needs.