pros and cons of interviews in market research

Interviews in Social Research: Advantages and Disadvantages

Table of Contents

Last Updated on September 11, 2023 by Karl Thompson

An interview involves an interviewer asking questions verbally to a respondent. Interviews involve a more direct interaction between the researcher and the respondent than questionnaires. Interviews can either be conducted face to face, via phone, video link or social media.

This post has primarily been written for students studying the Research Methods aspect of A-level sociology, but it should also be useful for students studying methods for psychology, business studies and maybe other subjects too!

Types of interview

Structured or formal interviews are those in which the interviewer asks the interviewee the same questions in the same way to different respondents. This will typically involve reading out questions from a pre-written and pre-coded structured questionnaire, which forms the interview schedule. The most familiar form of this is with market research, where you may have been stopped on the street with a researcher ticking boxes based on your responses.

Unstructured or Informal interviews (also called discovery interviews) are more like a guided conversation. Here the interviewer has a list of topics they want the respondent to talk about, but the interviewer has complete freedom to vary the specific questions from respondent to respondent, so they can follow whatever lines of enquiry they think are most appropriated, depending on the responses given by each respondent.

Semi-Structured interviews are those in which respondents have a list of questions, but they are free to ask further, differentiated questions based on the responses given. This allows more flexibility that the structured interview yet more structure than the informal interview.

Group interviews – Interviews can be conducted either one to one (individual interviews) or in a a group, in which the interviewer interviews two or more respondents at a time. Group discussions among respondents may lead to deeper insight than just interviewing people along, as respondents ‘encourage’ each other.

Interviews: key terms

The Interview Schedule – A list of questions or topic areas the interviewer wishes to ask or cover in the course of the interview. The more structured the interview, the more rigid the interiew schedule will be. Before conducting an interview it is usual for the reseracher to know something about the topic area and the respondents themselves, and so they will have at least some idea of the questions they are likely to ask: even if they are doing ‘unstructred interviews’ an interviewer will have some kind of interview schedule, even if it is just a list of broad topic areas to discuss, or an opening question.

The Strengths and Limitations of Unstructured Interviews 

The strengths of unstructured interviews

The key strength of unstructured interviews is good validity , but for this to happen questioning should be as open ended as possible to gain genuine, spontaneous information rather than ‘rehearsed responses’ and questioning needs to be sufficient enough to elicit in-depth answers rather than glib, easy answers.

Rapport and empathy – unstructured interviews encourage a good rapport between interviewee and interviewer. Because of their informal nature, like guided conversations, unstructured interviews are more likely to make respondents feel at ease than with the more formal setting of a structured questionnaire or experiment. This should encourage openness, trust and empathy.

They are good for finding out why respondents do not do certain things . For example postal surveys asking why people do not claim benefits have very low response rates, but informal interviews are perfect for researching people who may have low literacy skills.

The Limitations of unstructured interviews

The main theoretical disadvantage is the lack of reliability – unstructured Interviews lack reliability because each interview is unique – a variety of different questions are asked and phrased in a variety of different ways to different respondents.

We also need to keep in mind that interviews can only tap into what people SAY about their values, beliefs and actions, we don’t actually get to see these in action, like we would do with observational studies such as Participant Observation. This has been a particular problem with self-report studies of criminal behaviour. These have been tested using polygraphs, and follow up studies of school and criminal records and responses found to be lacking in validity, so much so that victim-surveys have become the standard method for measuring crime rather than self-report studies.

Sudman and Bradburn (1974) conducted a review of literature and found that responses varied depending on the relative demographics of the interviewer and respondent. For example white interviewers received more socially acceptable responses from black respondents than they did from white respondents. Similar findings have been found with different ethnicities, age, social class and religion.

Practical disadvantages – unstructured Interviews may take a relatively long time to conduct. Some interviews can take hours. They also need to be taped and transcribed, and in the analysis phase there may be a lot of information that is not directly relevant to one’s research topic that needs to be sifted through.

There are few ethical problems , assuming that informed consent is gained and confidentially ensured. Although having said this, the fact that the researcher is getting more in-depth data, more of an insight into who the person really is, does offer the potential for the information to do more harm to the respondent if it got into the wrong hands (but this in turn depends on the topics discussed and the exact content of the interviews.

Sociological perspectives on interviews

Fo r Interactionists , interviews are based on mutual participant observation. The context of the interview is intrinsic to understanding responses and no distinction between research interviews and other social interaction is recognised. Data are valid when mutual understanding between interviewer and respondent is agreed.

Related Posts

For more posts on research methods please see my research methods page.

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The Pros and Cons of Face-to-Face Interviews for Market Research

Face-to-face interviews have long been a staple of the market research landscape, and the ability to glean valuable insights from this method is a core reason why generic online surveys are fundamentally limited. Simply put, there are inherent aspects, features and possibilities in a face-to-face interview that cannot be captured or replicated by any other method.  

Yet with this in mind, there are advantages and disadvantages of face-to-face interviews that businesses should know before they implement or authorize this market research method. Below is a high-level look at the pros and cons:

Pros of Face-to-Face Interviewing:

1: empathy & personal interaction.

In face-to-face interviews, a great moderator can make a world of difference, especially when it comes to empathy & personal interaction. While conducting these interviews, moderators can connect with participants by showing that they understand what the participant is feeling. When your participants feel safe and understood, they can more easily let their guard down, open up and share emotions. Online surveys don’t capture emotions nor do they have the ability to adjust based on answers or give the participant any empathetic feedback.

In the case of specific studies such as ethnographies, moderators can actually observe how an individual is performing specific tasks and interact with them about the experience. It also gives the moderator a chance to ask the participant further questions about unexpected results.

2: Capturing Non-Verbal Cues

As noted by Psychology Today , body language is “communication without words.” While scientifically designed online and mobile surveys can improve data quality (i.e. certain questions can be asked in a specific order, or with certain response options, to more accurately collect what a respondent is conveying), the fact remains that there are some non-verbal cues that can only be captured in a face-to-face interview.  

By having a moderator there to record emotions and non-verbal cues, face-to-face interviews capture a more holistic answer to a question than an online survey question would. For example, if your market research participants interacts with a product, a moderator could detect confusion, moments of clarity, discuss mental models they’re using to solve a problem and more.

3: Experiencing Products in Real Life

When doing market research for products, there is definitely an advantage to seeing them, touching them, feeling them and interacting with them in real life. In a face-to-face interview, participants can see products and play around with them in order to answer your questions or complete necessary tasks. In online surveys, pictures are normally substituted in lieu of the real product and in some cases, the ability to experience a product with your own senses can make a huge difference in depth of feedback.

Cons of Face-to-Face Interviewing:

1: relatively higher cost.

Naturally, face-to-face interviews are going to cost relatively more than online or mobile surveys. This is both because of labor costs (whether in-house or partnering with a market research firm), and overhead costs (interview rooms, administration, possibly paying travel expenses for respondents, etc.).

So while investing in face-to-face interviews does come with more costs, the investment can be well worth it. With the three pros of face-to-face interviews in mind, there are situations where this methodology is the best way to achieve the research outcome. Therefore, if the information gleaned from face-to-face interviews can be very profitable, then this cost is more of an investment rather than an expense.

2: Data Processing

When beginning face-to-face interviews, you need to start with a plan for data collection and data processing. While the data collection plan might seem obvious, the data processing plan is commonly overlooked but should be thought of early in the planning process. In this processing plan, you should know what information you need to collect (audio, video, notes, etc.) and how you’ll process it for meaningful analysis.

Because there are typically multiple information sources, data processing for face-to-face interviews can be overwhelming and expensive. Plus you can’t simply go back and re-do your market research because your data processing plan wasn’t comprehensive. If you need quotes, you’ll need to record your sessions and invest in transcriptions. If you need visuals, you’ll need to have pictures or video then be able to sort through the footage to find the snippets you want.

3: Making Analysis Actionable

Face-to-face interviews are a rich qualitative methodology to utilize in market research, but that doesn’t mean you should use a face-to-face interview to base all your decisions upon. Many decision makers will want to marry qualitative data from face-to-face interviews with quantitative findings in order to see a more robust analysis.

Therefore before any action or decisions can take place, you should plan on utilizing another follow-up study to see how representative your face-to-face interactions are.

At Qlarity Access, we are experts on research logistics and recruitment of face-to-face interviews, which supports many top-notch researchers to get the most out of their work. To learn more, contact us today to get feedback on existing research goals or to discuss how we can help you answer new research questions.

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