Qualitatively Speaking: Communication keeps focus groups divine not dreadful

By Rhoda Schild | May 1, 2009

Reading time: 5 minutes

Abstract

Disasters of all kinds can befall a focus group but many mishaps can be avoided, the author argues, when everyone involved functions like a team, with the same goal in mind, and engages in honest, effective communication.

Research Topics:: Focus Group-Facilities | Focus Group-Moderating | Focus Groups | Qualitative Research | Recruiting-Qualitative
Content Type: Qualitatively Speaking

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Editor’s note: Rhoda Schild is a marketing research consultant at RCHorowitz & Company Inc., a New York research firm.

There are five types of focus groups: divine, good, average, hit-or-miss and dreadful.

Divine is when everyone within the group has met the client’s exact specifications, each respondent is articulate and just the right amount of talkative, the moderator is cooking on all burners and the chemistry has seemingly been laid down by the gods. To top this off, everyone within the group has dressed appropriately, video and sound are in sync, and the never-smiling camera guy is technically-adroit and grinning from ear to ear. When the groups are done, they are correctly labeled, picked up by FedEx and will arrive before 10 a.m. the next day for the client to view.

Good is when respondents have met the client’s specs but some are talkative, some reticent; the moderator just cannot get his or her arms around this particular collection of people and while the group is composed of the correct respondents, there’s not much electricity in the air. With a very good moderator this well-recruited group can be excellent; it may not hit the heights of magic but it can still be fruitful, yield a bounty of ideas and unto itself possess a small bit of enchantment.

Average is ordinary. Ordinary is what most people do not like to be labeled. Ordinary is when the respondents have met the specs but alas they are exactly what the client specified: ordinary. It is then within the moderator’s realm to make the interview sexy, to elicit from a correct-but-ordinary respondent just why they are not buying said product; why they are not compelled to get the newest vaccine on the block; whether it’s a monetary, safety or plain practical issue that keeps them from buying the car they covet; whether it’s a packaging thing; or perhaps as simple as the fact that the ordinary respondent’s medical insurance no longer pays for the brand medication and hence they are reduced to generics.

An anecdote: Once upon a time, years ago, an ordinary group about an ordinary topic in an ordinary facility was yielding a sub-ordinary response. The group, comprised of 10 ordinary women, would only echo yes/no, yes/no with their replies. The extraordinary moderator, possessing a theatrical sense of drama, suddenly fell flat on the table. The loud thud and the inappropriateness of the action shocked the women into a high state of attentiveness. Lying prostrate on the table in front of them he bellowed, “If you are going to act dead, I am going to nap.” Because of his theatrics this group did a 180-degree turn and became a very successful, spirited event. Only a unique moderator could duplicate this performance, but a good moderator knows, when challenged, what resources they can pull from their bag of tricks.

Hit-or-miss can be standard or it can be bad. Here are just a few of the myriad reasons hit-or-miss can strike the bull’s-eye or fall very short: if the client is a novice; is vague, obtuse, confused or unknowing; if the moderator is relying totally on the facility or recruiting service to pick up all the loose ends; if the recruiters are trainees; if the project coordinator is rushed or having a bad day; if all parties are not paying accurate attention but expecting all the other parties involved to pick up the unraveled threads.

Dreadful is a litany of the above plus even more bad traits. It starts with an unknowing, uncertain client drizzling errant information, misinformed instructions and issuing a badly-composed screener. It continues with a frustrated moderator who is sometimes aware they are impotent and sometimes unaware. It continues to recruiting, where the specs are not met, the respondents lie and the final recruitment a fiasco. A competent moderator can sometimes sense the impending trouble and, with a bit of tweaking, salvage a doomed project. But if the client is fearful, pompous or not trustful; if the moderator cannot find their way out of their maze-like discussion guide; and the recruiting is a big zero, the groups will be a working hell.

Clear communication

If conducting great groups is the ultimate aim, clear communication is the key. This means each and every member of what will morph into a small team will be allowed to ask for clarification on each, every and any issue they think necessary. Sometimes a lowly hostess at a facility has a brilliant observation. It is a wise team that will listen and incorporate her ideas into their next process.

But sometimes a smart-but-fearful moderator is not up to challenging a young, insecure client. Sometimes a newly-hired project manager, wanting so desperately to perform well, will assume knowledge they have not garnered instead of asking all those important questions to verify they have understood the project thoroughly. No good can come of this. Sometimes a bottom-of-the-rung-recruiter, wanting to be done with a job, will slide in an inappropriate respondent. When things go awry it is almost always because a miscommunication - major, minor or somewhere in between - occurred among one or more of the disciples working to put together groups or individual interviews.

In most cases, instead of relying only on e-mail, texting and other highfalutin technology, when reiterating and confirming last-minute changes, additions or subtractions, an old-fashioned telephone call works best. This personal communication has been known to avert the deadliest problems.

A few other observations in the name of better groups:

• When moderating highly technical respondents or erudite medical specialties, the facilitator must be gifted in dealing with these types. Whether the respondents be articulate, arrogant or just uncommunicative, it is the moderator’s talent that will elicit a dialogue that makes clients glow.

• It makes sense when doing a fashion-related group of overweight, 18-28-year-old women that the moderator be female, that the moderator not be size two and that the moderator be able to empathize with this segment.

• When doing a small-group of successful men who own high-end luxury cars it is paramount to elicit their correct occupations. You do not want, as once happened to a moderator we know, to have a COO of a major corporation and a drug dealer swapping tales about their car-buying ventures. (Though the moderator who reported this event was not bored.)

• Upon confirmation, an A1 recruiter is compulsive about repeating, over and over, the final instructions and the day, date, time and address of the gathering.

Horror stories

The divine focus group is labeled thus only in hindsight. Dreadful can be anticipated almost from the very beginning. Good is the barometer. Average is less-than-spectacular but workable. The glitches, mistakes, blunders, oversights, muddles and pure unadulterated horror stories that can characterize hit-or-miss and dreadful are primarily due to poor communication, lack of follow-through and human error.

But when communication is clear, details compulsively attended to and everyone aboard feels empowered and validated, there is a greater chance that focus groups and individual interviews can truly be divine.