Information is circulating with increasing speed. Companies need to organize themselves to be agile when collecting and analyze the data available.
In the past, it was necessary to use clipboards, put interviewers on the streets, hours of tabulation, with advances in technology, this process has become much simpler.
The number of users on the internet has increased in the last few years, so it has become much more viable for researchers to use virtual tools to collect data.
The internet has become a great source of research, as it allows, simultaneously, collect consumer data, potential customers and onlookers who access networks every day.
The power of the internet is in its accessibility, which happens through the popularization of smartphones. In this field, the interviews reach an uncountable number of respondents through a low cost.
But the online interview does not reign supreme in digital, among the possible methods are:
Face-to-face interview:
It's that old method of doing face-to-face interviews. Among the positive points is the possibility of flexibility and adaptation. The interviewer can present the importance of the answers and use psychological maneuvers to get the interview.
But we must not forget the negative points! There is a high cost and time invested in each interview in this methodology.
Via phone:
Compared to face-to-face, this interview is less time consuming, however there may be a fear of respondents in passing information over the phone. Another point is to be able to gather the phone number of the desired audience.
Online search method:
This type of method is faster and cheaper. The low cost includes the saving of printing questionnaires and the time that would be spent on data entry. The interviews happen more quickly since the answers are delivered in a matter of seconds and the tabulation of the results can be done electronically and made available in real time.
This method also has the advantage of an absence of interference from interviewers, resulting in more honest and faithful responses. The social distance of these interviews allows controversial topics to be approached in a lighter way.
The disadvantage lies in the fact that the response rate can be influenced by the amount of emails that are diverted, that is, those that the address was wrong or out of date. It can still happen that people do not understand the questions or become irritated and unmotivated and decide not to answer.
Which method to choose? Traditional or Digital?
First of all, without a doubt the face-to-face method is the best for quantitative and ethnographic research, because in these cases it is necessary to have a more humanized look when conducting the interviews. We also have to think that the population of lower social class and older age does not have easy access to the internet and even if they have access, there is no guarantee that the link to the interview will reach them.
However, Brazil is huge and there are specificities in each region. Without the need for an interviewer, digital research can reach a large area, and respondents have the possibility to respond wherever they are and whenever they want. In addition, the low cost of internet searches allows not only the State and large companies to have the ability to collect data, democratizing access to this type of information.
In this way, one method is not better than the other, it just meets different needs. When choosing the method, keep in mind the audience targeting want to achieve.
The data collected correctly will help you to gain in-depth knowledge about how your target audience is dealing with your product and with that, it will be possible to direct your actions.
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