What Are the Benefits of Focus Groups?
Companies and other organizations use a variety of means to gather feedback and ideas from consumers, customers and employees. Some techniques produce detailed information, such as extensive written surveys, while others are more general, such as product return data and brief phone support surveys. A focus group is a small group of individuals brought together with one or more interviewers to discuss in detail the topic of interest. The topic may be new product ideas and opinions or satisfaction with existing products or services.
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Diverse Participants
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Focus groups provide an opportunity to gather input from people from various roles and backgrounds and with different perspectives
Group Dynamics
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With an individual survey or interview, a respondent's input will be limited to the ideas and issues that he thinks of at the time of the session. The only prompts to trigger these ideas are the specific questions on the survey or the questions and comments from the interviewer. In a group setting, participants benefit from the ability to build on each other's ideas and comments, typically providing more extensive input than would otherwise be possible.
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Nonverbal Component
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In contrast to written or online surveys and phone interviews, focus groups present the possibility of observing nonverbal behavior. Participants' body postures and facial expressions provide additional information about the topic being discussed beyond what they say.
Open-endedness
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Not only will participants typically build on each other's comments, but focus group facilitators can modify their plans and dynamically adjust the types of questions asked and the means of evoking responses. She can do so based on what participants say, how they say it, which comments seem to be repeated or even what seems to be going unsaid.
Ease of Implementation
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With an experienced moderator or facilitator or standard instructions, a company can implement a focus group quite readily without excessive expense, equipment or preparation. Organizations large and small can use them in addition to other methods of gathering feedback and ideas.
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