Sterling Frazer Associates Focus Groups

Focus Groups

Focus groups provide you with information
that is most important to your customers
and are held in a setting that is open and
welcoming to the participants.

Our experienced moderators will help
identify the best mix of participants to get
the information that you need to improve
your product or business while meeting
the needs of your customers.

Sterling Frazer Associates Focus Group Process

Focus groups bring together a sample of people from the marketplace to review a product or a services.
Each session has approximately 10 - 12 participants (12 people are recruited to participate).
Participants are selected based on specific profiles that match the type of product/service being
evaluated. However, participants are not told in advance the nature of the research.

Participants share a common background to the topic, but our success in supplying
useful information to our clients is by creating a heterogeneous mix of people who: use
the product, are decision makers in the purchasing process, referral sources,
clinical/professional staff, family members, third party payers, retailers and/or industry
experts. The experience of each representative provides a different perspective of the
topic and promotes deeper discussion by the participants.

We recommend to our clients that three sessions be held. This helps create a more
valid sample size on which to base decisions. It also helps level out factors such as a
dominant participant, or a group that interacts poorly.

The focus group environment should create a sense of warmth to make the participants
feel they are safe to share their feelings or concerns.

Each session is led by a professional moderator. It is the moderator's role to initiate
discussions with open ended questions, but the true value of a focus group is identifying
issues that are relevant to the consumer, not the manufacturer or researcher.

Moderators work with a guideline of questions that have been pre-approved by the client
before the session. However, it is the skill of a trained moderator who can investigate
deeper into the relevant comments of participants.

Sessions are recorded to ensure accuracy of reports.

Reports of the sessions are combined and submitted to the client. Included in the report
are recommendations by Sterling Frazer Associate researchers based on the research.