| We find that conducting focus groups with
doctors can be challenging. Typically, doctors are used to having people listen to their
every word and being able to speak without interruption. However, in a focus group with 7
or 8 other doctors, we sometimes need to cut someone off to make sure all the topics are
covered and everyone gets heard. When a respondent
in a focus group of doctors is disruptive, it puts the moderator in a tricky situation.
These people are used to being treated with great respect, so we need to get them under
control, but do it politely.
We had that situation when presenting some marketing
concepts to a group of doctors. In response to the first concept, one doctor said
"that sounds like it came from the Iraqi Ministry of Information! I don’t
believe that." The moderator replied "well, let’s turn that around. How
would you suggest they say this?" The respondent had no answer, but continued with
increasingly negative comments which were unpleasant for the rest of the group and
completely unconstructive.
In a regular consumer group, this might be one of those
rare situations where the moderator would have the respondent removed from the group. But
since these were doctors, that might upset the rest of the group – they might feel
that the respondent wasn’t getting the respect he deserved. The moderator thought
quickly, turned to the respondent and said in a very solicitous tone, "would you
prefer to leave" – where his tone implied that it must be difficult for such a
great doctor to deal with such a mundane issue such as marketing. It worked! The doctor
was taken aback, and said "no... I just say what I think." But after that, he
was the nicest respondent you could ever want!
More anecdotes (click on the quote to read
the anecdote):
"We don’t know what we have to say
to sway them. How do we turn prospects into customers?"
An unusual focus group technique yields results
"Talk to the employees. But don’t
tell me that they need to be paid more money."
Clarifying objectives with clients
"But if the software goes down, my whole
business would be paralyzed."
Category knowledge helps obtain additional insights
"I
want to know what people think of our website – both how it works and also the
overall concept."
We came up with a hybrid methodology for more effective website
research |