Qualitative Research for deep-dive discovery
Hear it in their words. See it in their world.
Focus groups, one-on-one interviews, mobile journaling, mystery shopping, and user experience optimization, designed and run by the same senior team that turns what customers say into what you build, price, and say.
Illustrative mobile diary entry, day 3 of a 7-day grocery shopping study: a 42-second video, a written comment about the shopping list falling apart in store, three photos, and a stress rating of 4 out of 5.
Across payments and financial services, healthcare, technology, education, retail, and telecom.
We are always listening to what matters most
Each method sees something the others miss. We choose, and often combine, them based on the decision you need to make.
Focus groups
Moderated group conversations where customers react to ideas and to each other, surfacing shared language, points of disagreement, and the reasons behind both.
- In-person groups
- Facility or on-site sessions you can watch live, with products, prototypes, and stimulus people can handle.
- Virtual groups
- Video-based groups that bring together participants from different cities and markets without travel.
- Participatory design and co-creation
- Working sessions where customers sort, map, and build ideas with us, not just react to them.
Use it when
You want to hear how customers talk about a category, react to early concepts, or build on each other's ideas.
Participatory design sessions mapped the moments when JetBlue's most loyal customers wanted to hear from the brand. They shaped a co-brand credit card proposition that lifted purchase intention by more than 50%.
Read the case studyOne-on-one interviews
Private, in-depth conversations that go where group settings can't: personal finances, health, professional buying decisions, and the detail of how someone really uses a product.
- Live-moderated, in person
- In-home, in-context, and in-store sessions, including shop-alongs.
- Live-moderated, remote
- Video interviews with screen sharing, ideal for digital products and busy B2B decision-makers.
- AI-moderated
- Adaptive AI interviews that probe every answer, run in parallel with hundreds or thousands of people. See Qualt.
Use it when
The topic is sensitive, the decision is complex, or the audience is senior or specialist.
Hands-on testing with target users shaped the Society of Grownups financial education app, and its prototypes outperformed market-leading apps in pre-launch tests.
Read the case studyMobile journaling
Participants record their lives as they happen, over days or weeks, on their own phones. You see the moments that interviews have to rely on memory to recall.
- Video diaries
- Short clips that show the context: the kitchen, the commute, the checkout, the desk.
- Photo and screenshot journals
- Visual evidence of routines, products in use, and the screens people actually see.
- Written diaries and activity & emotion logs
- Quick in-the-moment entries, ratings, and mood check-ins.
- Guided tasks and prompts
- Daily or event-triggered activities, from unboxing a product to paying the first bill.
Topics we cover include
Use it when
Behavior unfolds over time, happens in private, or is hard to remember accurately afterward.
Mobile journaling gave Santander a closer, day-to-day view of customers' financial circumstances and behaviors: how they move money between accounts, what they worry about, and what they want recognized. Those insights informed the development of new checking account and credit card products.
“I am trying to build a solid base now in order to have a better future.”
“Reducing my level of debt is a top priority.”
“I check my account every hour to make sure there's enough in it.”
“I'm always taking money out of savings and putting it into checking.”
Mystery shopping
Trained shoppers experience your product, service, or sales process as a real customer would, and report what actually happens, not what's supposed to.
B2C
Stores, branches, call centers, websites, chat, and app onboarding. We check service standards, product knowledge, pricing and offer accuracy, and how you compare with competitors.
B2B
Sales inquiries, demos, proposals, onboarding, and support, experienced as a prospective business customer, where a lost deal is costly and hard to diagnose.
Use it when
You need to know whether the experience you designed is the one customers get, or how you stack up against a competitor.
In-person observation, mystery shopping, and day-in-the-life job shadowing uncovered the critical needs of small-business owners. Those needs became a segmentation and a bundled POS-plus-banking offer, validated through conjoint, with integration points that translated into higher revenue per customer.
Read the case studyUser experience optimization
Hands-on testing of apps, websites, and service journeys with real users, from first wireframe to live launch, so friction is found and fixed before your customers run into it.
- Concept and prototype testing
- Sketches, wireframes, and clickable prototypes tested with target users before anything is built.
- Usability testing
- Task-based sessions on real devices, moderated in person or remotely, to see where people hesitate, stall, or give up.
- In-the-wild testing
- Testing in the real setting, in store, at home, or on the go, with QA run alongside your development team.
- Iterative test-and-learn
- Round after round of testing and refinement, through MVP and beyond.
Use it when
You're designing or relaunching a digital product, app, or service journey and need evidence on what to fix first.
Iterative testing of the Scan & Bag mobile app, run “in the wild” in stores, delivered higher intent to use and higher satisfaction than the benchmark handheld scanner.
Read the case studyChoosing the right approach
Most studies start from one of these five, and many combine two.
| Method | Best for | What you get |
|---|---|---|
| Focus groups | Early exploration, concept reactions, and the language a category uses | Themes, customer language, and reactions to stimulus |
| One-on-one interviews | Sensitive or complex decisions, and senior or B2B audiences | Individual stories and decision journeys, in customers’ own words |
| Mobile journaling | Behavior that unfolds over time or happens in private | Moment-by-moment journeys, with photo and video evidence |
| Mystery shopping | Checking delivery against standards and benchmarking competitors | Experience audits, first-hand accounts, and fixes by channel |
| User experience optimization | Designing, relaunching, or fixing apps, websites, and service journeys | Prioritized usability fixes and a tested path to launch |
How we run it
One team, end to end. The Sibilance researchers who design your study recruit for it, moderate it, analyze it, and present it, and can carry it straight into any quant that follows. No hand-offs between vendors.
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Frame the decisionWhat you need to decide, and who you need to hear from.
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Design and recruitChoose the method mix, write the guide or tasks, and screen and recruit participants.
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FieldModerate, observe, or run the diary or shop, in person, remote, or AI-moderated.
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AnalyzeCode themes across every session, with researchers reviewing each step.
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RecommendFindings, customer language, and recommendations tied to your decision.
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Size it, if you need toTake what you heard into segmentation, MaxDiff, or conjoint.
Questions we hear
Which method should we use?
Start from the decision. Groups are best for reactions and shared language, interviews for depth and sensitive topics, journaling for behavior over time, mystery shopping for what customers actually experience, and UX testing for finding friction in digital products and journeys. Many studies combine two, for example a diary study followed by interviews to explore what we saw.
In person or virtual?
In person when people need to handle products, or when the setting itself matters. Virtual when you need to reach more places or harder-to-reach participants without travel. We often mix the two in one study.
Can interviews be AI-moderated?
Yes. When you need depth across hundreds or thousands of people we use Qualt, our AI-facilitated approach. Sibilance researchers design the guide, oversee quality, and interpret every study.
Do you recruit participants?
Yes. We manage screening and recruitment for consumers, small-business owners, and professional B2B audiences, so you don't need a separate recruiting vendor.
How is participant privacy handled?
Participants give informed consent before taking part, recordings and diary uploads are stored securely with access limited to the research team, and findings are reported without identifying individuals.
Talk to us about qualitative research
Tell us what you need to understand and who you need to hear from. We'll suggest the right mix of methods, and one team to see it through.