When to Conduct Face-to-Face Interviews

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With Mobile Survey - PC Edition now released, when would I recommend conducting face-to-face interviews rather than web surveys?  The following examples are from my personal experience; hopefully, readers will chime in with more.

• Major-account customer satisfaction - This was actually the primary consulting service we launched the company with back in 1993, initially doing major-account studies in the telecom and manufacturing industries.  When you have accounts worth hundreds of thousands of dollars (or pounds or Euros), you definitely can benefit from a personal presence in the interview process.  Going to the trouble of a face-to-face interview demonstrates the seriousness and importance of the satisfaction survey.  It also can lead to a greater rapport between interviewer and interviewee, drawing out better answers.  Finally, in a consumer satisfaction survey you just care about satisfaction in aggregate, but in a major-account satisfaction survey you will often write a profile of each individual company being interviewed.  This becomes a very valuable planning tool for both vendor and customer and helps strengthen the business relationship.
• Collecting field examples - For a major copier manufacturer, I once traversed the country interviewing managers of internal copy centers, collecting samples of the color plots, print-outs or photographs that they would like to copy with color copiers.  So at the end of the project, not only did I have detailed survey results, but I had a portfolio of representative documents showing exactly what prospects would use a color copier for, if they had one.  The illustration I'll never forget was one that a U.S. auto manufacturer gave me illustrating foreign vs. domestic auto market share by state:  it turns out that the Midwest has the highest relative market share for domestic cars, dropping as you move out to the East and West Coasts.  Nowadays, for collecting field examples, you could use digital cameras, snapping images of respondents and their existing products to creatively supplement the survey results.
• Company repositioning - Two computer manufacturers had merged and were seeking to understand how they could reposition the combined company as the industry migrated away from traditional data-center computing.  We surveyed a host of prospects and customers about their perceptions of our client and its competitors, helping to identify strengths and weaknesses that could be used as our client repositioned itself into an IT services company.  The face-to-face interviews tended to run long and led to detailed, useful responses.  Not all the comments were constructive, of course; I'll never forget how one respondent summed up my client:  "A disastrous amalgamation of two very good companies."
• Productizing new technology - Too often the actual practical benefits of a new technology are poorly understood.  Face-to-face interviewing, following a general discussion guide rather than a rigorously scripted questionnaire, can be a great way to tease out applications that can benefit from the capabilities of a new technology.  We often did such research when investigating emerging telecoms technologies.  Focus groups can be used for this application, but I prefer the ability to drill-down to detail one-on-one with a respondent.

And the best reason to conduct personal interviews?  Great experiences! 

Thanks to doing face-to-face interviews, besides having a laptop catch on fire, I was once almost run over by Princess Di and her motorcade, I once had to deliver a 40-year old bottle of Scotch to a respondent as the "incentive" (and he didn't share a glass with me!), and I once had a respondent who only agreed to the interview because he could tell from my accent that I was an American, and he planned on interviewing me in return for an hour about his four-week itinerary to the States!

This being a blog, and not a white paper, it seems like I have the space to tell a rather long, involved story, about a great experience getting to and from a face-to-face interview.  If you just came for the tactical advice above, feel free to skip the remainder of this post.

Castle Donington Village

Brad Patton, our chief software architect, speaks of "the perfect moment" of a trip, that sublime epiphany that resonates within the mind and defines and epitomizes the journey forever after.  For me, the perfect moment of my personal-interviewing sojourns came one day when I was driving to meet a Communications Manager.  I got on the M1 motorway at Luton and started driving north to Nottingham.  My directions were to find Castle Donington Village, take the main arterial through the centre to the other side of the village, and there would be the offices of British Midlands Airways.

As I drove, I kept going through hills and valleys.  In the valleys it was foggy, and I had to turn my headlights on;  I turned them off at each hill, where the sun shone brightly.  At last, I found my way to Castle Donington Village, driving past the villagers cottages to and by an ugly power station.  Castle Donington is odd mix of the ancient and the modern.  Finally, below me and before me lay a castle, the eighteenth-century mansion of a landed aristocrat.  (This is really not a castle, just a manor house, but it seemed like a castle to me at the time:  turns out the eponymous castle had been torn down so that its stone could be reused.)   I drove down to the "castle" and discovered it had a car park.  Not only did it have a car park, it had a sign.  British Midlands Airways.  My appointment was in the castle!

Actually, reception was in the castle, but the receptionist directed me to a recently completed, modern, replete-with-glass-windows office building, built on a hill below the castle and obscured from sight from the car park.  That was where my interview was.  The interview took an hour and was memorable for two things:  the respondent thanked me for taking the time to interview him (!), and he said, "All our business is about is getting bums on aeroplane seats."

Upon returning to my car, I discovered I had left my lights on.  I hurried to it and tested the ignition.  No joy, as the British say.  I went back into the castle and explained my problem to the doorman.  "Could I use a phone to call the AA (Automobile Association)?"  I asked. (This was before many people had car phones.)

"What kind of car do you 'ave, governor?  Is it gear?"  Meaning stick-shift or manual, as opposed to automatic.

"Why, yes it is gear," I replied, wondering what that had to do with anything. (Not having driven gear in the States. To this day I can only drive manual with my left hand.)

"Well, hold on then.  Let me get Ted, and we'll see if we can't help you on your way." 

He found Ted and the two found their way out to my car.  They made me put the keys in the ignition.  "When I shout, give the key a turn, governor."

The two Englishmen ran behind me, pushing my car.  One gave a yell, I turned the key, the engine rolled over, and I soared off into the perfect, sunlit afternoon.

...and so, while they may not always be practical or cost-effective, face-to-face interviews will always be my favorite method for conducting surveys.