COVID-19 has altered the course of business and society, accelerating the pace of change in ways we couldn’t imagine only a few years ago. We’ve had to adapt to new behaviors and ways of working. Some shifts will stick, others will recede. One that has taken firm root is the use of more “virtual” methods to conduct qualitative fieldwork. These virtual platforms eliminate the need for face-to-face meetings, reduce costs and increase efficiency while still maintaining the sense of interpersonal connection critical to uncovering deeper insight and customer perspectives.

Many firms offer a range of virtual solutions and are amplifying their efforts to deliver maximum effectiveness with minimal disruption. To help you wade through the flood of options, we at Shapiro+Raj have assembled a list of our recommendations for a variety of common virtual qualitative research designs. While this is by no means a comprehensive list, we hope it will help you find a solution that suits your needs.

Virtual Interviews or Focus Groups

A personal connection between moderator and respondents is the heart and soul of focus groups and individual interviews. Expert moderators attune to the verbal and nonverbal cues of respondents as they question, probe and engage with projective exercises that uncover the rational and emotional drivers of behavior.

We recommend FocusVision’s InterVu (www.focusvision.com) as the virtual platform that most closely replicates the in-facility experience. InterVu uses webcams to bring respondents and the moderator together, a virtual backroom with an instant-message style chat feature that enables clients to share their reactions and pass notes to the moderator. Plus, it has various bookmarking tools to help find interesting content when the recorded sessions are being analyzed.

Importantly, the InterVu service provides a live support technician to help respondents get connected and troubleshoot tech glitches, allowing the moderator to focus on the research. The only thing missing is snacks for the backroom!

We’ve found that for market research InterVu is superior to web conference tools like WebEx, Skype, or Zoom because it’s built specifically for market research. Alternative research-focused platforms like Civicom (www.civicom.com) are also worth considering, especially if you do not have a master agreement with FocusVision.

Bulletin Boards and Online Diaries

Bulletin boards comprise an important and distinct research methodology that allows respondents to collaborate directly with each other, but on a timeframe that meets their needs. Boards can last several days for a single-project design or can last for months when functioning as standing panels. Related to bulletin boards are online diaries, which have a similar user interface but are geared toward a series of multimedia activities for respondents to complete on their own. Diary activities are usually kept private from other participants, but of course are submitted in real time for researchers to review and probe against. The most robust online diary tools also support geo-activation of activities, which helps capture in-the-moment reactions at crucial times and places on the path toward purchase.

We like Qualboard from 2020 Research (www.2020research.com) for bulletin boards but are intrigued by others like Web Creator Suite that are built around innovative respondent interfaces to encourage social engagement. On the diary side, FocusVision’s Revelation (www.focusvision.com) is an excellent tool for online diaries and advanced mobile ethnographies. It’s easy for respondents to use on their smartphones and strikes the right balance between powerful features, straightforward setup and effective analysis.

Large Scale Qualitative Events

A new breed of tool has captured our interest of late: qualitative research events. These bring dozens of respondents online together at the same time for a mix of personal and group activities. The technologies allow for larger sample sizes than traditional qualitative research and an astoundingly fast turnaround of key insights from the event. We love them for iterative qualitative research where larger sample sizes are required to make the next stage-gate decision.

At Shapiro+Raj, we’ve used Invoke (www.invoke.com) to host these events. It works well for stimuli-driven research where respondents choose, rate, rank, etc.— all the while explaining their “whys,” which Invoke immediately tabulates. It even allows for moderators to ping individual respondents with probes, ensuring that the most unique insights get the attention they deserve while the event progresses.

Remesh (www.remesh.ai) has also gotten our attention. This platform has a unique talent in that it enables respondents to answer questions in “unaided” fashion while its AI categorizes and distills these answers in real time. From there, respondents can vote on their level of agreement to an “aided” set of responses, delivering both a qualitative and quantitative capability.

We’re focused on helping our clients continue to unlock market ready insights in a safe, effective and more agile manner, with a dedication to technologies that deliver better answers in the time today’s competitive environment demands. For example, the Shapiro+Raj team uses our own proprietary tools like S+R AQuA™ and the Client Portal alongside many of those described above to ensure we can do just that.

If you’d like to learn even more about these platforms or share a successful virtual research story of your own, please get in touch with us so we can find the perfect solution for you and our colleagues in the industry.

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