Researching the leveraged influencer in telephone focus groups

By George Silverman | December 1, 1993

Reading time: 6 minutes

Abstract

This article reports on the current application of telephone focus groups. It discusses the advantages of using this technique to reach people who are key in the decision-making process (leveraged influencers), cost and logistical advantages, and the ability to incorporate stimulus materials and projective techniques into the phone focus group experience.

Research Topics:: Focus Group-Teleconference | Focus Groups | Qualitative Research
Industry/Market Focus:: Business-To-Business
Content Type: Research Methodology

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Editor's note: George Silverman, president of Market Navigation, Inc., Orangeburg, N.Y., is a completely recovered and reformed psychologist.

It's been almost 25 years, and over 5,000 groups, since I invented the telephone focus group and developed it into a viable research tool. This qualitative issue of Quirk's Marketing Research Review is an appropriate place to report on its present status and current applications.

In case you're unfamiliar with them, telephone focus groups are interactive group interviews that take place over a specially designed telephone conference system. Typically, about seven to 10 participants are in all-way interaction, just as if they were in a face-to-face focus group. In this case, however, they are all on their own telephones, usually at home in the evening. (This is not a group of people around a speaker phone. Everyone is in a different location.)

Reaching leveraged influencers

When people initially try telephone focus groups, they usually do so not for the reduced role-playing, and greater openness and interaction these groups provide. In fact, they are - understandably -skeptical about group dynamics over the telephone. What they are usually looking for is access to people who are otherwise difficult or impossible to recruit.

In every product category there are leveraged influencers, prescribers and approvers, like editors, physicians, engineers, industry gurus, innovators, etc. They may be very difficult to get into face-to- face groups, either because they are too busy (particularly if they have to travel), or they don't want to talk openly (particularly with people from their own region). There are also people up the distribution chain, like store clerks, managers, owners, wholesalers, jobbers, distributors, buyers, etc., who are usually unwilling to talk with people down the block.

Leveraged influencers can be members of Congress, Nobel Prize-winning economists, Fortune 100 company presidents, presidents of numerous other firms, and leading physicians in virtually every medical category you can think of. But they can also be farmers, retailers, business managers, educators, librarians, children, elderly people, and auto mechanics.

The higher you go, to greater and greater expertise, the easier it is to recruit people into telephone groups. The reason is that high-level participants are starved for interaction with peers. They want to hear what their peers think, what their experiences are, how they are handling problems.

All too often, companies conduct focus groups of the end users because they are the only ones who will participate in groups.

But it is very important to research these leveraged influencers, especially in these days of increased decision complexity, with more group decision making, third-party sources, and increased skepticism from the decision maker. People are fuming more often to others whom they see as objective, to help sort out information overload. Word of mouth from local computer gurus, MIS managers, or even store clerks, can be more important in influencing the prevailing opinions among relatively uninformed end users. All too often, companies conduct focus groups of the end users because they are the only ones they can get into groups.

New, proactive uses

Until recent years, most telephone group projects were reactive. That is, someone would ask a research analyst to conduct focus groups of a certain type of hard-to-recruit respondent. Now, people are thinking more proactively about who influences the decision and how we can research and then influence the influencers. And in these days of cost cutting, reduced staffs, and the need to reach more influencers, people are now using telephone focus groups to reduce costs, finish projects sooner and proactively seek out hard-to-reach decision makers.

A normal face-to-face project might involve going to three cities and conducting two groups in each city. With telephone groups, it might be possible to conduct four groups nationwide, going to greater depth because there's less need to repeat issues that were confirmed in the first two nationwide groups. This saves money not only in the reduced number of sessions, but in travel costs of moderator and observers. The savings can be anywhere between 10% and 200% (in one case where the client typically travels with 10 observers!), with an increase in information quality. Also, there are fewer repeat respondents and the project can be completed faster.

High tech improvements

With such factors in their favor, telephone focus groups are now taking off. Besides the aforementioned reasons, modern equipment now makes it dramatically easier to hear what's said, compared with even a few years ago. There is a presence, without static or clipping, that draws the participants in and allows the moderator to hear nonverbal cues like chuckles or sighs much better.

It's also possible now to dial into the conference system with a modem and see a screen with every participant's name on it. Whenever anyone talks - or makes any other sound - an asterisk appears next to the name. The moderator always knows who is participating, even if that person only snickered. There are many other technical improvements, like continuous electronic polls, breaking into subgroups, and talking with the client.

I got an indication of how widespread telephone group use has become when I sent out a letter to about 400 independent moderators announcing a training class on telephone groups. More than 75 signed up immediately. Many of them said that clients are more receptive to telephone focus groups than eve' because they see the need to reach the real decision makers.

Some recent applications for telephone groups include:

Groups of AIDS-patient counselors and physicians talking about their reactions to recent news about drugs.
Automobile jobbers talking about recent changes in automotive parts retailing.
Mixed groups of users of an exercise machine talking with active prospect to see how they influence one another
Cable TV company presidents reacting to changes in their industry.
Hospital and HMO pharmacists and administrators talking about present and future changes in the health care system, especially changes in the decision making process for new therapies.
Monitoring physician acceptance of new products.
Predicting relative acceptance among lab directors of two different technologies of pap smear screening.

Stimulus materials in phone groups I'm often asked whether you can use stimulus materials and projective techniques with high-level people. Absolutely. They often love the break from abstract talk and welcome the opportunity to express themselves in a different mode.

You can present stimulus materials in telephone focus groups by mailing them in advance. I often send sealed envelopes and ask participants not to open them until a moderator asks them to, during the session. Using this method, participants are usually very eager to finally get at the stimulus materials, and they generate lots of response.

Some projective techniques work better over the phone, while some don't work at all. Obviously, you can't do picture sorts, montages or drawings easily over the phone. On the other hand, guided fantasies, sentence completions, analogies (If these products were _____s, what kind of _____s would they be?), word association games and many creativity exercises seem to work better over the phone. People seem to feel safer closing their eyes when they are alone, and they are more willing to express divergent, even absurd, ideas when they can't see other people.

Recommendations

Where would I not recommend telephone groups? When people actually have to touch, see and feel the product, or for multi-hour creativity sessions. For most other situations, you will get just as much -sometimes more - out of telephone groups.

I urge you to give telephone groups a try, first in a safe situation, then in even bolder applications. If you are a moderator, I hope you will remind your clients of the leveraged influencers and people up the distribution chain they are overlooking, and that you will suggest telephone focus groups. If you are a client, I hope that you will encourage and support your favorite moderators in learning how to conduct these groups. The only thing you have to lose is your airline food.