Qualitative research

The Power of Qualitative Research

Introduction

Qualitative research is regularly used
widely by companies to provide
insight into customers’ true needs
and wants. These insights go far
beyond standard quantitative work
like surveys.

Here’s why…

2 The Power of Qualitative Research christina@people-path.com

Qualitative Research

Qualitative research is one of the two major
approaches to research; the other is
quantitative research, which relies on surveys
and statistics. Qualitative work provides
more:

•  Involves an in-depth understanding of
human behavior.

•  Categorizes data into patterns as the
primary basis for organizing and
reporting results.

•  The need is for smaller but focused
samples rather than large random
samples.


Qualitative Research

•  Investigates the why, how, what,
where, and when of decision
making. Quantitative research
cannot address “why” and “how,”
yet “why” and “how” provide the
actionable results and the
reasons behind people’s actions.

•  Ethnographic methods are the
most powerful of the qualitative
techniques.


Famous Results…

Mini Cooper Fridge pack

Miller Lite Huggies Pull-Ups


A Comparison

You want to know how your
customers use voicemail so you can
refine your marketing strategy.You are
thinking of creating an automated
voicemail system to deliver messages
to customers. To find out about
voicemail use, you hire both a
quantitative researcher and a
qualitative researcher.


A Comparison

The quantitative team pulls together a 10-question survey
about voicemail use and sends it out to 1000 customers. The
team comes back in two weeks and shares these results:

•  85% of customers use voicemail at different times; some listen during the
morning commute, some around lunchtime, and some throughout the day.

•  90% of customers listen to voicemail in different places; some in their car, some
only at work, and some anywhere.

•  Over half of customers sometimes don’t listen to their voicemail at all.


A Comparison
A qualitative researcher has been asked the same question:
How do customers use voicemail?

•  The researcher recruits 15 participants in
three regions of the country to participate.
Each respondent is “shadowed” for an entire
day, and for the week following the shadow
sends a text message and snapshot of
where they are at that moment to the
researcher every time they answer
voicemail.

•  After completing the fieldwork and analyzing
the resulting 200-pages of transcripts, 50
hours of video, and 1,000 photographs, the
qualitative team comes back with these
results…

A Comparison

•  Customers nationwide go through a very detailed decision-making tree when
interacting with their voicemail, though there are some regional differences.

•  Many customers don’t like to listen to their voicemail simply because it’s too
much of a pain. Instead, they just look at the call log to see who they missed,
then call back directly. There are business exceptions to this.

•  Customers who listen to voicemail while commuting avoid talking to some
people by instead leaving a return voicemail in the early morning hours.

•  Customers who need to listen to voicemail for business purposes prefer to
listen to it either throughout the day, or in one chunk. The deciding factor is
needed responsiveness (i.e. sales people feel that they need to get back to
customers more quickly while cubicle jockeys feel they can wait a few hours).


A Comparison

•  The main conclusion from the qualitative team was that using voicemail for
marketing wouldn’t be useful since customers might not listen to the message.
In fact, they would probably be irritated at you for doing such a thing.

•  However, during the study it was noticed that text messaging was something
that customers responded to immediately because it was easy and perceived
to be non-confrontational. And all text messages were read.

•  In the end, the results from the qualitative team moved the marketing strategy
away from voicemail and towards text messaging. In addition, voicemail was
redesigned to better meet the needs of customers.

•  Overall, the extra time investment and cost of the qualitative work helped
avoid a costly mistake and also provided “double-duty” by addressing
other important customer needs.


Customer Contact Hours
The qualitative researcher studied 15 customers around the country intimately. This
“deep-dive” approach produced twice as much data, all of which was actionable.

160
140
120
Customer Contact

100
80
Hours

60
40
20
0
Quantitative: 1000 Qualitative: 15
customers customers


Benefits of Qualitative Work…

All qualitative research is not created equal. Ethnography is the most intensive of
techniques but provides the most valuable information. Group discussions (or
focus groups) are quick and easy, but provide much more limited information:

Ethnography On-site Group
Interviews Discussions
Level of Insight In-depth Generalizable Overall
Area of Innovation and New & Modified Evaluation of
Application Planning Designs/Services Existing Products
Time & Cost High Medium Low


Benefits of Qualitative Work…

•  Avoid costly mistakes by addressing real
needs and wants before you take action.

•  Know what the people you serve want before
they do.

•  Improve speed to market for products and
services.

•  Realize greater innovation potential.


Working with You
Everyone does “ethnography” these days. So
the reasonable question is, how does this
approach differ?

•  More than the interview.

•  Uncovering the unexpected.

•  Not just interesting information, but
actionable findings.

•  Research and analysis grounded in
30 years of experience.

•  Research grounded in actual social
science training.


Working with You

People Path will work with you to select the best method and deliverable based
upon your research question, time constraints, and budget.


People Path Provides…
•  Ethnographies
•  Needs assessments
•  Customer modeling
•  Personas & profiles
•  Cultural profiles
•  Semiotic analysis
•  Cross-cultural comparisons
•  Neighborhood characterizations
•  Outreach & development plans
•  Life-stage overviews
•  Shopping behavior and trigger analysis


Some Methods…

•  Participant observation
•  Contextual inquiry
•  Individual interviews
•  In-home activity mapping
•  Environment/neighborhood activity
mapping
•  Ethnographic videography
•  Material culture analysis
•  Usability Studies: in-context
•  Design research
•  Online journaling
•  Photo journaling
•  Behavioral patterning


Christina Keibler, MS, MA
Anthropologist & Principal
720-474-3488
christina@people-path.com

Gavin Johnston, MA, MA
Anthropologist & Principal
720-474-3489
gavin@people-path.com

www.people-path.com


Qualitative research

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