Question

Topic: Customer Behavior

Customer Focus Group

Posted by TILO on 9/20/2005 at 3:59 PM ET 125 Points
Hi all

I am planning on holding a customer focus group to gain an outside in view of our support offering. My intention is that the information output will help to develop a new portfolio of technical support services aligned to our customer needs.

My dilemma is this, I have never held a customer focus group before....

Any advice or guidance would be really appreciated.

Rgds
Tim
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RESPONSES

  • Posted by Carl Crawford on 9/20/2005 at 5:14 PM Accepted
    https://www.marketingprofs.com/3/harris2.asp

  • Posted by mgoodman on 9/20/2005 at 5:44 PM Accepted
    The most important thing is to get a professional moderator. It will signal the importance to your customers/participants, and it will probably get you better input than doing it on your own.

    It's also very difficult to be thinking about what you're hearing, reacting to it, analyzing it, considering the source, figuring out where to go next, etc., if you're the moderator and the client at the same time. Much better to let the moderator be the moderator and the client be the client.

    Also, keep the groups small (no more than 8-10) so that each person has to contribute ... can't hide in the crowd.

    Spend as much time as you need to get the objectives nailed down, the discussion guide developed, and the moderator briefed on what kinds of things you're hoping to get at each stage in the focus group interview. The more clearly you think it through up-front, the better chance you'll get what you need.

    Good luck. Let me know privately if you need help with this. I've had pretty good success with customer focus groups in B2B industries, using the same principles developed for consumer FGs.
  • Posted by TILO on 9/21/2005 at 4:18 AM Author
    Thanks for the response.

    I hear what you are saying about getting a professional moderator, however I am trying to forge that role for myself within my company. Presently I am acting as an internal consultant, sitting on the fringe of many teams.

    I have done moderation work in the past for creativity workshops, the hippy stuff, and would really like to expand my breadth of knowledge into the customer arena. I have studied creativity and innovation during my MBA and have found that when I have used these internally for change, they have been very effective.

    With this in mind, any insight of structure, content etc will be helpful.

    Thanks
    Tim
  • Posted by TILO on 9/21/2005 at 6:26 AM Author
    Hi

    I will definately will take on any advice given.. In fact I hadn't thought about transcripts..

    Any further insights would be more than welcome.

    Rgds
    Tim
  • Posted by steven.alker on 9/21/2005 at 9:44 AM Accepted
    Hi Tim

    Before posting, I re-read Basil Harris’ article on focus groups (referred to by FireFox) and found that I still largely agree with it. Michaels’s comments about getting a professional moderator, at least in the first instance are also very pertinent. I’ve had the good fortune to gain experience on chairing all sorts of meetings, starting 30 years ago as senior VP of the Students Council at St Andrews University and moving on through various industry and professional sales forums.

    I’m still learning and I look like a total wombat when you compare my skills to those of someone like the chairman of a top company on the London Stock Exchange, doing his bit for a charity or running a session for one of our local chambers of commerce. You’ll find the experience both humbling and very, very informative.

    I’d also like to add a couple of words of warning. Focus groups will give you an unparalleled opportunity to listen to people’s feedback on the range of issues already mentioned, but they are not an excuse to abdicate either leadership or innovation. A company which allows its course of development to be dominated by focus group feedback will tend to pander to a low common denominator and back comfortable ideas and policies. You must be prepared to challenge their views and to be controversial, arguing your case for changes which in the first instance may not be all that palatable to a panel.

    Secondly, panel selection is fraught with difficulties because the membership is predicated by a willingness to attend and participate. Group members can therefore be self-selecting and without care will represent the more vociferous members of your buying public who have an opinion that they want to make heard. If you allow this to happen, the so-called silent majority who buy most of your products will have changes and initiatives foisted upon them that they either don’t give a tinker’s cuss about or, even worse, object to strongly. A quiet person’s objection is registered not through a powerfully worded letter but by a refusal to purchase.

    Good luck with your endeavour and I look forward to hearing from you when you’ve got the groups up and running and need some advice on how to analyse 101 totally different opinions on half a dozen issues when there are only 12 people proffering them. That’s focus group statistics for you!

    Steve Alker
    Unimax Solutions
  • Posted by Carl Crawford on 9/22/2005 at 8:05 AM Accepted
    https://www.gotomarketstrategies.com/tip_focusgroup_09-05.htm
  • Posted by TILO on 9/22/2005 at 9:18 AM Author
    Excellent links and advice..

    Thanks
  • Posted by mgoodman on 9/23/2005 at 6:41 PM Member
    You really need to decide if you're the client or the moderator of the group. You can't possibly do a good job of both at the same time.

    Focus groups are fraught with pitfalls and ways to screw up. In the case of customer focus groups that's doubly true, because the focus group interview itself can change their opinion of the company. And if you don't take their advice, they'll feel like you've wasted their time.

    All the more reason why you want an outside expert moderator to make the whole thing seem more objective and more important to the company. If you act as the moderator, it's "the Company" asking all the questions. When it's an outside professional, it's a more objective exchange of ideas.

    I've been a moderator and I've been a client -- not at the same time, of course. And I've been involved in consumer focus groups and customer focus groups. I can't imagine a situation in which it will make good sense for you, as a company employee, to be the moderator in a customer focus group.

    I think your strategy is flawed.
  • Posted by TILO on 9/24/2005 at 9:59 PM Author
    Many Many thanks to everyone. All of the input is really great.

    This forum is an excellent opportunity to learn and grow

    Thanks
    Tim
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