Focus groups are an excellent way to understand the beliefs and motivations of customers that drive purchase behavior, which may be challenging to understand through analytics alone.
However, human beings can be unpredictable, and dealing with real people often presents considerable challenges that may require a bit of problem-solving. Here are a few common issues that tend to arise when planning or executing a focus group and how you can overcome them without wasting precious time and resources.
1. Recruiting the Right Participants
One of the biggest challenges of any research study is recruiting the right people. The data you obtain won’t be particularly useful if the participants don’t reflect your customer base or the group you want to study.
Focus groups bring an added layer of complexity. In addition to finding people who reflect your target audience, you also need to vet their communication skills, consider the group dynamics, and recruit from a large enough cross-section of the population to ensure diverse perspectives.
Using detailed screening surveys is a great way to overcome this barrier. Along with the standard demographic questions, you might also consider including quick creative exercises and open-ended discussion topics to gauge their ability to follow instructions and willingness to participate.
2. No-Shows and Last Minute Cancellations
While you can do your best to look for trustworthy candidates who will honor their commitments and show up on time, inevitably someone will cancel at the last minute or not show up at all.
Over-recruitment is an easy way to deal with this issue. If you need six participants for a focus group, recruit eight. That way if two drop off, you still get the data you need, and if they all show up, you’ll have more than enough information to draw from.
3. Getting More Out of Quiet Participants
Once you have enough participants, the challenge is getting them to open up and provide detailed responses that articulate their true feelings. This can be especially difficult with participants who are naturally quiet or reserved.
Try using empathy by acknowledging the difficulty of opening up in front of strangers and letting participants know that you understand their hesitations. Explain why their input is so valuable to the research and express how much you appreciate their efforts. Let them know that there are no right or wrong answers and that they simply need to share their honest opinions or experiences.
You may need to make a point of calling on the quiet ones to speak more than others who open up voluntarily. If all else fails, consider providing incentives such as a reward at the end of the study for their continued participation.
4. Handling Disruptive Participants
On the other hand, you may also come across participants who are a bit too talkative to the point that it’s impacting or overpowering other group members. With over-talkers, acknowledge their contributions then mention you’d like to hear a different perspective. Calling on different participants directly may help solve the problem.
If it escalates to the point where their behavior is making others uncomfortable, you may have to find a way to pull them to the side. Let them know that you appreciate their time but you have more participants than you need to complete the study and they are free to leave.
5. Avoiding Groupthink
Obtaining authentic responses that reflect the participant’s true feelings is another significant challenge when conducting a focus group. Participants may feel pressured to agree with the majority, rather than express a unique opinion, especially if it’s controversial or contradicts the rest of the group.
Asking individual participants direct questions may help reduce peer influence. If the subject is particularly sensitive, consider supplementing the focus group with anonymous surveys or in-depth interviews to provide more confidentiality.
6. Maintaining a Focused Environment
In order to dig deep and nurture nuanced discussions that produce useful insights, you need to keep participants focused and on topic, which is why it’s crucial to maintain a distraction-free environment. However, in certain scenarios, this may be easier said than done.
With so many focus groups being conducted online these days, it can be a significant challenge to avoid distractions in a virtual setting because there are so many variables that are out of your control.
A good way to mitigate this problem is to set some ground rules for the research. For instance, you may tell participants ahead of time that they must be in a quiet room to participate (as opposed to out in public or driving). It’s also wise to double-check that the platform and internet connection are stable before starting, so technical problems don’t interrupt the conversation.
7. Interpreting Non-Verbal Cues
In addition to noting what participants tell you directly, you should also be observing body language, visceral reactions, and other non-verbal cues that reveal subconscious feelings and attitudes. What participants don’t say is just as important as what they do say and how they say it. So interpreting non-verbal cues is vital to truly understanding the findings from a focus group.
That being said, it can be difficult to pay attention to the body language of six to eight different people, all while asking questions, managing group dynamics, and keeping the conversation on track. Taking detailed notes, recording sessions, or having other team members observe from behind a two-way mirror are all great ways to ensure you don’t miss the subtle cues that may reveal breakthrough insights.
Plan the Perfect Focus Group With the Help of New Perspectives
No matter how well you prepare, planning and moderating a focus group without the proper skills and experience can be a difficult undertaking. One simple way to make it easier is to trust the expert market research professionals at New Perspectives to handle it for you. Our team has years of experience helping clients conduct focus groups that drive real results. Contact us today if you need our help.
