Qualitative vs. Quantitative Research: What’s Best for You?
One of the most common questions we get from clients and prospective clients is this: when should I employ qualitative versus quantitative research methodologies. Like anything, it’s about finding the best possible tool to tackle a particular problem. You don’t use a motorcycle to haul debris to a garbage dump. And you don’t use a dump truck to haul your kids to soccer. Or at least you shouldn’t.
Market research is no different. There are numerous ways to skin a cat when it comes to gathering market intelligence. The key is to find the best possible approach to match the goals and needs of your particular business situation.
What is the difference between quantitative research and qualitative research?
Let’s start with the basics. What do these broad categories of market research methodology mean?
Quantitative Research is the process of collecting and analyzing numerical data. It uses statistics and mathematical analysis to shed light on important facets of your business and market. This type of research typically involves survey work with larger sample sizes and is therefore statistically valid.
Qualitative Research aims to gather and analyse non-numerical(descriptive) data in order to gain a deeper understanding of research subjects.It unlocks attitudes, values, and motivations. This type of research is less about numbers and more about people. It typically involves a smaller sample size and utilizes more intimate customer engagement vehicles such as focus groups, in-depth interviews, or observations. The goal is to collect insights that are rich in detail and context.
Should I use qualitative research or quantitative research?
Both qualitative and quantitative approaches have merit and offer organizations tremendous value in terms of market understanding. The reality is that using both methodologies together often provides the best overall solution for a research endeavor. The challenge occurs in situations when employing both methodologies is not a practical client option for budgetary and/or timeline reasons. A decision must be made regarding which approach is the better fit in a particular situation.
In my opinion, the best way to start the conversation is by looking at the overall business objective of the client. Albert Einstein is quoted as saying “If I had an hour to solve a problem, I'd spend 55 minutes defining the problem and five minutes thinking about solutions.” Nowhere is this more true than in the case of a market research initiative.
Defining the business challenge at hand is the first and, arguably, the most important step in any research endeavor. Generic business objectives are not particularly useful.‘We want to sell more stuff’ does not provide the strategic direction required to make proper methodology recommendations!
It’s critically important that clients articulate, as best they can, the specific business decisions or actions that will be guided by the market research information and insight. This helps us understand the nature of the research challenge. It will also help us unearth variables that will help us choose between various research design options. Every approach will have its strengths and weaknesses, and so overall fit really is paramount.
Which situations are best for qualitative research?
Full disclosure: we atStreet Smart specialize in qualitative research. I want to be very clear when I say that does NOT mean we are biased toward promoting qualitative methodologies over quantitative alternatives. Certain situations will require a qualitative solution, others won’t. It does not benefit any party in the process to recommend a research solution that fails to provide the best overall solution for a client.
That said, I have taken the liberty of identifying the types of situations and scenarios that are hallmarks of an effective fit with qualitative methodologies. These are not to be taken as hard and fast rules, but rather situations where qualitative research merits serious consideration.
1. When organizations are faced with significant change. I’m a firm believer that in-depth customer research is a great place to start when a business or organization is faced with a market situation that represents significant change. This caninclude scenarios like launching new products, or expanding into new segments or sales territories, or having a new competitor introduced to the market. This can also include social or economic changes in the consumer environment that may impact how they are making decisions. COVID is an obvious example, but so too are other social or economic fluctuations such as recessions, politic all and scape upheavals, and demographic evolutions.
These kinds of changes will impact customer perceptions and decision-making and will eventually begin showing up in business KPIs. I say ‘eventually’ because there is often a lag between observing attitudinal changes in the market and realizing the subsequent impact on business results. Unfortunately, by the time you can observe the impact of change in business results, the opportunity to take proactive measures to manage these changes in a favourable way has passed. It makes far better sense to try and understand the impact of change on your customers in real time. This allows you to anticipate implications and be a head of their eventual impact on business performance.
2. When the primary question is… WHY. The value of qualitative interactions with customers is the ability to ask questions. This, in turn, helps us better understand the rationale behind customer perceptions and decision-making.
Clients will often approach us with a scenario where they’ve identified an issue (such as a sudden drop in sales) but they lack understanding and context in terms of what has caused the issue in the first place. Poor business results are not the real issue, they are the outcome of underlying issues, and these are what need to be properly understood if meaningful solutions are to be implemented. The opportunity to ask why will help us understand the customer’s perspective. These critical insights enable proactive business planning.
3. In situations where EMOTION is important in the category. In our experience, the methodologies used to ask questions can, by their very design, have an impact on participant responses. More logical question formats (such as the ranking or rating exercises commonly found in quantitative research exercises) tend to prompt participants to place more emphasis on rational discriminators. Ask a logical question and you are more likely to get a logical answer!
Less logical question formats emphasize more emotional discriminators. Collage image building, for example, will show how customers feel. Consumers are able to tap into the emotional side of the decision equation simply because they were provided with tools that are more effective at helping them connect with their feelings.
This often helps explain why two separate research studies designed to uncover customer priorities don’t always align with one another. It’s not that customers are lying to us, it’s that the design of the questions can be biased towards revealing certain types of responses.
From a research perspective, our job is to ensure we fully understand all the discriminators that play a meaningful role in decision-making. For example, when purchasing a vehicle, logical discriminators such as price, fuel efficiency, and warranty are all going to be likely customer considerations.However, so too are less logical discriminators. What does a particular vehicle brand says about a driver’s personality? What does it suggest about their professional or financial success? These less logical discriminators are the most challenging to discover and explore from a research perspective – especially if the question design is focused on ratings and rankings.
This is where qualitative research really shines. Qualitative interviews allow for a significantly higher degree of intimacy than written surveys and the like. The additional time, flexibility, and creativity inherent in the format will allow us to effectively access more emotional consumer sentiments and feelings.
Therefore, if the category is considered highly emotional, it only makes good sense to ensure that you are utilizing methodology that properly explores these factors.
For example, a category like baby clothes tends to be heavily influenced by emotion. Love, pride, and joy are all heavy emotional sentiments intertwined in this space. I would suggest that this is the type of category where qualitative research would be a great fit. This would also be true of sensitive or highly controversial topics. These are typically laden with emotion and should be explored in ways that allow that emotion to surface.
By contrast, a category like consumer mortgages would be far more rational in nature. Interest rates, a mortization periods, portability, and pre-payment terms all tend to be very important discriminators in this decision-making process. Therefore, quantitative tools would likely be a better fit in this situation.
Deciding between qualitative and quantitative research methodologies
It can be challenging to decide which research methodology to employ in a particular situation.However, if the research goals have been articulated properly and there is a good understanding of the category’s nuances, the best approach will become more obvious. Understanding the role of emotion in the customer decision-making process is particularly important when making this determination.
What is the nature of your organization’s current initiative, challenge, or decision? Is quantitative research best suited to your situation? Or would qualitative research be abetter fit? Both?
Simply speaking out loud about the situation can often allow clarity to emerge. Why not schedule a free consultation where we can discuss the nature of your organization and the insights you require?