For some clients, we conduct the entire process. In other situations, we provide just the level of support you need to conduct most of the work yourself. Some of the key steps:
- Selecting the number and location of focus groups.
- Inviting participants.
- Identifying the right questions.
- Preparing the interviewing guides.
- Collating and analyzing the findings.
- Developing practical and actionable recommendations.
- Presenting the results to executives in a way that gets results
How We’re Different
- Our proprietary process for helping you select the fewest possible focus group locations that will provide you with the greatest possible variation in perspectives on the research topic.
- Our interview guides are structured in a way that allows for absolute consistency in the way each session is conducted, regardless of how many different facilitators are involved.
- Our reports are highly visual, illustrating to what extent different groups agree and disagree.
Sample Projects: Focus Groups
Retool the Global Magazine
A new communication director inherited an existing global publication and needed some employee input to see how effectively it was meeting the company’s objectives. Focus groups we conducted in the U.S, Europe and Asia showed some surprising similarities in what was working well and what wasn’t, although sometimes for different reasons. Interestingly, some of the techniques executives thought to be most effective in showing the company to be a great place to work were, in fact, making employees feel patronized and alienated.
Improve Survey Results
A repeat survey showed virtually no improvement in key communication metrics over two years, in spite of the communication department’s best efforts. We conducted focus groups to identify specific interventions that would make a difference, and found a great many opportunities on the operational side, such as communication during shift changes. Another key finding was that everyone’s expectations of supervisory communication were different and not very well defined. As a result of the study, the communication staff reorganized themselves to better support operational management, and plant managers became committed to making changes in communication that measurably helped their bottom lines.
Pre-test New Strategy
A new leadership team was about to roll out their 13 key strategies to employees in the form of a video. We pretested each of the points in focus groups, as well as the intended communication channel. The findings completely changed the roll-out. The 13 strategies were reduced to five. Several were completely rewritten to avoid some highly negative reactions during the pretest. Examples were provided that addressed the most common questions we heard during the pretest. And the method of communication for the introduction was completely overhauled. Result: an overwhelmingly positive launch with employee emails and letters continuing for weeks afterward.