Probing for Illuminating Information

My work as a market research interviewer helps organizations to be more competitive and efficient.  Businesses commission market research studies to learn how to add value to their product or service.  They may also conduct market research to uncover problems.  Market research studies are also done so that public relations workers can learn how to put the best spin on a message.

One of my best memories is of when a client said that the information we gathered was illuminating.  To get illuminating data, an interviewer must be able to probe well.  Probing is asking questions that are not written in the questionnaire to clarify vague or general responses to open-ended questions.  We also probe with questions such as “What else?” or “Why else?” to get as much information as possible from a respondent.

Probing well requires the ability to think quickly and the ability to read a respondent.  An interviewer must not ask leading questions.  For example, a respondent might say that the most important issue to be addressed by local public officials is education.  One person might be thinking about teacher salaries when they talk about education.  Another person might be thinking about outdated textbooks.  Still another person might be thinking about dropout rates.  If the interviewer asks “Do you mean the high dropout rate?” the interviewer is asking a leading question.  The respondent might mean the dropout rate, but they might mean something else.  If it is something else, we could lose the information by asking a leading question.  Many respondents will just say “Uh, yeah” rather than correct the interviewer.

A stock probing question is “What do you mean?”  This question usually gets a respondent to be more specific, but sometimes a respondent will give a definition of a word that they used.  Such a response is not usually useful.  A few years ago I did a telephone interview about an upcoming election.  I asked a respondent how he would vote in a race for a seat in the United States House of Representatives.  He told me how he would vote.  The follow-up question was “Why?”  The respondent told me that he would vote for his candidate because the other candidate was a slacker.  I could tell that this guy would give me a definition of the word “slacker” if I asked what he meant, so I asked “What gives you that impression?”  He talked about missed votes and failure to answer letters and phone calls.  This is the kind of information clients need to address why people make the choices that they do.

Another good probing question is “Why is that important to you?”  This usually gets at information that is not revealed by agree/disagree statements or demographic information.  It must be asked appropriately, however.

John C. Stevens

Saperstein Associates

(614) 261-0065

jstevens@sapersteinassociates.com