A Good Facilitator Adds Value to Your Focus Group

Launching a brand new product in the market is no cakewalk. As a business professional, you need to make huge investments for introducing a product to your customers. A major portion of your investment goes for research and development. If your product launch goes well, then it earns you good money; but what if things don’t turn out to be as expected? Well, in that case your company’s finances goes at a complete toss! This is one of the possible reasons why most companies bring in the concept of a focus group.

After all, from the views and opinion shared in the focus group, you will come to know what notion your customers have about a particular product. Depending upon their opinions, you can modify your product accordingly and then launch it in a new way. This increases the chances of making your product a sure success.

Choosing the right facilitator for your focus group

Bear in mind that your job doesn’t end after you have created a focus group. Instead, you need to look for a reliable facilitator who would lead the discussion. A focus group can be defined as a qualitative research platform wherein consumers matching certain criteria set by your company, share their views and opinions about a specific product or service.

It is the facilitator who takes up the charge of interviewing the participants. Ideally, in a focus group, the participants are allowed to share their views freely. The interactions and conversations made in the focus groups will give you an idea about how your consumers feel about a proposed product or service.

How the facilitator works?

Once you appoint a facilitator, he or she should start planning the event properly and effectively. To plan the event, he needs to identify the target market and objective of your business. Next, the facilitator should select the participants and location that are in compliance with the target market and objectives.

After the successful completion of the planning job, he needs to conduct the focus group and ensure that all the conversations and opinions are recorded. He should also ensure that every participant gets an opportunity to speak. Lastly, based on the discussion he should prepare a summary and submit it to the company. After all, it is this summary that will help you know whether the proposed product or service is fit for your customers or some modifications are still required. Hence, choosing a good facilitator is of utmost importance if you want to come up with a successful product in near future.