Qualitative interview

Qualitative interview is a method widely used by social science, marketing research in information collecting (use for example during a China market study). By means of qualitative interview, the researcher come to define the existing problems and find solutions with his clear insights. During this interview, he or she should analyse interviewees’ behaviors and messages in order to make sense of the causes of a phenomenon or verify the previous imagination. Different from quantitative interview, qualitative interview emphasizes the event attribute rather than the event rate. Information collecting in qualitative interview results from the interviewee’s expression and description of his experience and his views upon a product , service or theory. To make it simple, qualitative interview explain the why of an event, and quantitative interview explains the what of an event.

Qualitative interview in China is often undertaken among a small group which is a well selected sample. This China market research doesn’t bear aspects of numerical statements. Instead, we are relied on researcher’s experience, sensitivity and concerned techniques to come up with a good interpretation of interviewees’ behaviors and messages. For the reseacher, he or she makes use of notes, recordings or other data to reach a conclusion in his or her report. So the reseacher plays a role of great importance in the whole interview which is controled and guided in a more or less subjective way. This is why some argue that the qualitative research is sometimes restrictive.

Apart from the product conception, a successful new product’s launch depends also on a better China market understanding , in which qualitative reseach should not be ignored. Through qualitative interview, we can obtain valuable advices and inspiration from interviewees or our clients. For instance, such questions as Who aill probably buy the product? What’s the trump of the product for the clients? What’s their reaction towards our packging, advertisement? are the focus of product designers and marketers. However, these acquisitions can’t be easily done in a company conference, or even in a brainstorming. Only with well controled qualitative research can we get best responses to this questions.

Qualitative interview in China can proceed in various forms. Focus group and one-to-one in-depthinterview are the most mentioned and utilized. For the sake of lower cost, shorter time spending and easy control, qualitative research becomes well received by enterprisers and marketing officials. No matter which method to adopt, there’re three principal steps: planning, implementation, analysing and application. In-depth interview, the researcher attempts to develop a subject during his conversation with the interviewee. In course of their talk, the interviewee should judge whether the conversation performs in a right direction. At the same time, he should make sure that the interview does contribute to analyse the quality of the subject.