Qualitative research for retail and services
In retail and services, a qualitative study shows how a person experiences buying or being served, what brings them back and what makes them leave. It works best with your customers and competitors' customers in separate groups, rebuilding concrete experiences, and with every finding backed by a quote anyone can check.
What makes retail and services different?
In a service, the product is the experience: the care, the waiting times, the channels, the terms and the fine print. Two companies can offer the same thing on paper and be seen very differently because of how each contact feels. Retail works in a similar way: the same goods are chosen or passed over depending on how people move through the store, the website or the app.
Complaints, satisfaction surveys and churn data tell you how many and where. A focus group explains why: which moment of the journey weighs most, which expectation was not met and what the competition offers that feels different.
Which decisions can you hear about?
| Decision | What you hear in the group |
|---|---|
| In-store or branch experience | What makes people feel well or badly served and which moment of the visit weighs most |
| Digital channels | What works well on the website or the app and what forces people to call or go in person |
| Price, plans and terms | How plans are compared, which condition triggers distrust and what people take from the fine print |
| Customer churn | What made someone switch to a competitor and what would have kept them |
| New offer or service | Whether it is understood, who it is for and what it is compared with |
Several of these decisions have their own page: why they don't buy, price and value proposition and product launch.
How is the study designed?
We start from the decision and define the profiles from there: current customers, former customers and competitors' customers, each profile in its own group, recruited with a recruitment screener that asks which service or store they use today and which one they used before.
We work with groups of 6 to 8 people and sessions of 90 to 120 minutes. Instead of asking for general opinions, each person rebuilds a concrete experience, such as their last purchase or their last complaint, step by step. Stimuli can be screens from the website or the app, a contract, an email, photos of the store or an ad. With the nominal group technique, each person writes first and talks afterwards.
We run the groups in a room in Santiago, Chile, recorded in 360 with one microphone per person. The brand can follow the session live.
What experience does WAV have?
WAV (We Are Vision) is a Chilean company with 20+ years and 600+ experiential marketing projects: bringing brands into people's direct experience. WAV Research applies that closeness to audiences to qualitative research, with WR3, our software, which ties every finding to its quote, the profile of the person who said it and the exact minute.
Our qualitative research experience is in the automotive industry. The method does not change from one industry to another: the decision first, groups by profile and every quote verifiable. What changes are the profiles, the stimuli and the questions, and that is what we design with you.
What does the brand receive?
Findings that answer the decision, each with its literal quote, the profile of the person who said it and the exact minute of the session. WR3 separates who is speaking with 90.4% agreement with a human review, measured on 141 moments of a real session (how we measure it). The deliverables come in Spanish and English: 360 video of each session with English subtitles, web and PDF report, a deck for the board and an action tracker.
You can browse the format in the sample report. It is built from a fictional study of a car brand, but the structure is the same for any industry: neither the brand, nor the people, nor the quotes are real.
Frequently asked questions
Can you study customers who left?
Yes. Former customers go in their own group, recruited with a screener that asks which service they used before and which one they use today.
Does it work for a company without physical stores?
Yes. The stimuli become screens from the website or the app, emails, contracts or the sign-up process, and each person rebuilds their experience with them.
How is it different from a satisfaction survey?
The survey tells you how many are satisfied and at what point. The group explains why, in the words customers use to tell it.
Where do the groups take place?
In Santiago, Chile, in a room recorded in 360 with one microphone per person, in groups of 6 to 8 people and sessions of 90 to 120 minutes.
Can I watch the session live?
Yes. The brand can follow the session live, and also receives the 360 video of each session, recorded with one microphone per person.