The term IDI stands for In-Depth Interviewing and it is a type of qualitative research that involves a one-to-one discussion between a professional interviewer and a respondent chosen based on certain criteria. The interviewer is looking to go more in-depth on a certain topic with the respondent in order to find out ideas or aspects that don’t usually show up in a quantitative research. An IDI typically takes anywhere between 30-90 minutes and it can be done either online, in an online chatting platform environment, face to face or by telephone.

Capabilities

GCS conducts in-depth interviews in all the countries where we own strong and fast growing proprietary online panels across Europe, Middle East, Africa, Asia and the Americas, as well as around the world via carefully chosen local partners.

The interviewees are either recruited in advance or, in case of the IDIs conducted online, they can be recruited in real time while they complete an online survey, based on their answers to previous questions. GCS offers professional interviewers that are native speakers of each official local language in the countries we cover. This way we make sure that there is no bias caused by language difficulties and the respondent has a pleasant experience at the same time. In case client wants to use its own interviewer we can also handle only the recruitment and the incentive parts, while client will do the rest.

All the IDI sessions are recorded and the end client (or other party involved) has the possibility to monitor the process in real time.

Quality control

We employ several methods to ensure best quality for the data collected using in-depth interviewing:

• Apart from the project manager that is in permanent contact with client, two senior level local supervisors work on each project, ensuring backup throughout the project and availability of a knowledgeable contact at all times

• Project materials are proofed for translation by native speakers of each language, to make sure that client’s original goals are not missed due to poor translation

• Thorough briefing and debriefing of the interviewer

• The interviewers we provide are chosen based on their experience with the topic and are always native speakers of the official local language(s)

• Deliverables are thoroughly checked by two different experienced analysts to ensure accuracy before they are sent over to client.

Works best for ...

• Finding out important aspects in consumers’ behavior that are easily missed in a quantitative research; they can later develop into key competitive advantages for a certain product or service.