02. Focus Group Moderation
HSBC
Role: Writing topic guides • Preparing focus group materials • Focus group moderation • Analysis & Insight reporting
London, UK 2018
Commercial banking
The Challenge
HSBC, one of the largest global banks are looking for ways to build upon their digital experience. By conducting research into their existing products they wanted to understand expectations based on specific consumer journeys.
After a series of discussions with the client, it was time to plan for the research. Focus groups were the chosen research method as this was the best way to gather a lot of information from a large number of participants in a relatively short amount of time. The challenge was to manage a large group of people in a way that makes sure we received feedback and insights from all participants.
Snapshot of moderated focus group session
Method & Process
Planning involved 2 main tasks; First creating the discussion topics guide and second creating the materials to be used during the focus groups. In addition to this, I created an accompanying materials guide to share with the clients to get their financial expertise and approval of content.
To anchor the focus group we chose credit cards, as this is a common financial product that sparks different points of view from the members public.
For the group discussions, I wanted participants to talk openly with each other about their experiences, expectations, research methods and motivations regarding credit cards. The discussions would be broken up with either group or individual exercises.
I wanted to create exercises with enough variety to keep participants engaged for the duration of the focus group and that also incorporated questions from the business goals for the project. Exercises included; activity sheets where participants could circle relevant images and write their own thoughts, word association games where participants could and match adjectives to financial service providers and finally a prioritisation exercise where, as a group participant could re-order financial terms based on importance.
Learnings
Analysing the focus group data I was able to uncover insights. I presented the findings in a way that the client could see a direct correlation to the focus group activity, observations, the insights and the final identified customer need. To further support future projects added this into potential implications and opportunities.