Focus groups phone in. (Research Reports).

As the ag industry tries to gain insights into attitudes and opinions, travel restrictions make it difficult to obtain the cooperation of respondents and sponsoring companies' representatives. When this occurs, consider using telephone focus groups instead of traditional face-to-face discussions.

Telephone focus groups offer the following:

* Respondents can participate from the comfort of their home, office, or hotel/motel room

* Faster scheduling and delivery of qualitative research results

* More information gathered than from traditional face-to-face groups, e.g., no geographic limitation on recruiting

* Lower cost than face-to-face groups

* Convenient for client management to listen to groups from anywhere with access to a telephone

* High quality audio recording can be provided by the telephone company

Telephone focus groups have been very effective in bringing together veterinarians, crop consultants, distributors/dealers, and large producers and growers throughout the U.S.

Doane Market Research has found that the participants are at ease and open. Moderators simply call on participants by name or if the moderator opens the response to anyone, then participants are asked to identify themselves before responding to a question. In addition, when properly moderated, participants respond to comments made by others in the group.

CHARACTERISTICS OF A STANDARD
TELEPHONE FOCUS GROUP SESSION

Number of participants                  6-8

Geography of participants               Nationwide/regional

Average length                          1 + hour *

Environment for participants            Comfort of home or office/or
and listeners (client)                  any other location desired (via
                                        800 number and code word--there
                                        is a listen only mode for
                                        clients)

Environment for Moderator               Office

Ability to test visual concept ads      Pre-mail participants visual
                                        materials

Ability to conduct paper &              Pre-mail participants materials
pencil exercises

Cost                                    Usually considerably less than
                                        face-to-face focus groups
* To avoid participant fatigue