Environment Matters: No More Boring Focus Groups
If you’re reading this, then odds are you’ve been on one side of the two-way mirror or both. The focus group is one of the longstanding ways to gather feedback on your products and services. That real life interaction with your buyers helps you determine what’s really important, confusing, delightful, or just downright unnecessary to them and refine your offerings to better meet their needs.
Conducting even the best focus group comes with challenges – like finding the right respondents who communicate their feelings effectively, don’t dominate or overshadow the rest of the group, or, opposingly, sit silently and never open up, not to mention finding a space that helps facilitate these aspects. This is why you want your environment to work for you, not against you.
The pandemic necessitated and accelerated a move to virtual focus groups. The virtual space is not without its advantages – broader recruitment without geographical constraints, removing logistical challenges like travel time and locating your facility which makes people late, and overall, more flexibility. But let’s face it, the drawbacks impact you where it matters.
You can’t duplicate that special in-person quality of dynamic conversation in a virtual space. Moderators need to really engage with your respondents. They need to see their body language, make eye contact, and truly socialize. Likewise, the interplay of your respondents with each other is paramount to getting a real genuine interaction. Not to mention you want everyone to be comfortable. Joining in from your living room sounds nice at first, but we all know that “Zoom fatigue” is real and you won’t hold a respondents’ attention long unless you get them into a curated environment that gets them really thinking about your product and not what the cat is doing in the corner.
So that’s it! I’ve convinced you. We’re ditching that virtual focus group and we’re going offsite. This isn’t the end of the story, though. Getting your respondents in a room together is key but you want that room to help you, not hinder you. Flat colors, bland surroundings, stuffy, stale boardrooms and office chairs aren’t going to benefit you. We don’t want people at home getting distracted or uncomfortable, but we don’t want them zoning out in a monotone facility that’s more function than fun.
You need a creative space that really gives you permission to get experimental with structure. Your space needs to be warm, inviting, and engaging. If you want your respondents to open up, you need them to be comfortable and energized instead of cold and closed off. Let’s get some plush seating, tasty snacks, room to expand outside of the typical, and a wonderful aesthetic that really unlocks creative thinking. These elements will get you focused, dazzle your clients and research team, and inspire your respondents to speak their minds.
Catalyst Ranch has been doing focus groups since we first opened our doors in 2002 (long before we installed our two-way mirrors in 2010!), adding versatility to the list of outstanding traits you want in your focus group facility. It’s also a reason to think beyond the two-way mirror and get creative with your focus group structure. Sometimes having the clients in the room interacting with the respondents might be more helpful. Sometimes setting up stations where respondents react to different product stimuli or prototypes by going from table to table, might yield useful information in a way that sitting in a circle might not. We’ve seen our clients doing all of the above.
So, speaking from experience, we’d like you to think creatively when structuring your focus groups – and take them from boring to brilliant, maybe even inspired.
Companies are driven to our space because it’s simply so unique and VERY different compared to a standard research facility. Clients can easily impress their respondents and research team with our colorful and all-inclusive venue. Our clients understand that their consumers will feel more open, expressive and comfortable in our space. We also have lots of candy!
-Kira Lynch-Hernandez, Senior Client Services Manager, Catalyst Ranch
If you don’t believe us, take a look here!
You’re here to deliver results and you should never settle for less than the best when it comes to your focus groups. The allure of the convenient virtual meeting is going to persist but I know, because you’re reading this, that you know better. Give your respondents and your team a real experience that really delivers. Not to mention, you’ll have fun too!
Click here to learn more about our focus group capabilities, or call us at (312) 207-1710.
Lyndon Stewart is the Managing Director at Catalyst Ranch.
Contact us at (312) 207-1710 or lyndon@catalystranch.com.
Catalyst Ranch is a unique meeting and events space located in Chicago’s West Loop since 2002, offering Space to Imagine More and solutions for all your in-person, virtual and hybrid gathering needs, including focus groups and market research.
