Analyzing focus groups and in-depth interviews means looking closely at what participants say, identifying themes, and understanding how views differ across groups. For Candid Counsel, that work also involves finding the evidence to explain those findings clearly to clients.
We recently caught up with John Cipriani, Founder and Partner at Candid Counsel, about how the team uses BTInsights to examine feedback across a project, compare participant groups, and bring findings into client presentations through supporting quotes and video showreels.
The Challenge: Analyzing Feedback Across Multiple Focus Groups and Interviews
Before using BTInsights, Candid Counsel’s team worked with transcripts supplied by its focus group platform. Working with those transcripts took some preparation, though, and researchers often spent hours correcting misheard words and removing unnecessary text before they could begin.
Once that initial cleanup was complete, the team then kept the transcripts in separate Word documents or combined them into one large file. For a study with six focus groups, they might color-code the text by group, then manually search for keywords to find comments on a particular topic.
From there, researchers also had to check which group it came from and decide how well it supported the analysis. When clients wanted plenty of quotes to illustrate the findings, that process could take hours.
The team later tried a handful of AI tools and assistants built into other research platforms to speed up the quote-finding process. Although the results sometimes looked promising, John sometimes found suggested quotes that weren’t in the original transcripts. His team couldn’t fully trust the output, so they still had to manually verify each quote against the source.
Finding, Verifying, and Showcasing Quotes With BTInsights
Now, after each focus group or in-depth interview, Candid Counsel uploads the video to BTInsights’ Interview Analysis Platform. The team can find supporting quotes and check them directly against the recording, giving researchers more confidence that they’re using participants’ own words.
That reliability stands out to John after his experience with other tools. As he puts it, “you cannot trust AI outside of your platform to actually pull accurate quotes.”
Checking the source is straightforward, too. “I can click on every single quote and the audio just pops right up; I can hear it immediately.”
With the transcripts together, researchers can also search across the whole project while keeping track of where each comment came from. Instead of working through several documents, they can find what participants said about a topic, dig deeper into particular themes, and compare responses across groups.
The team still applies its own judgment to the analysis and presentation. Researchers may tighten a quote by removing filler language while preserving its meaning, but having cleaner transcripts to start with makes that work much easier.
Comparing Responses Across Different Groups and Markets
For Candid Counsel, BTInsights is especially useful when a project involves several participant groups or markets.
In one study spanning Germany, the UK, and the US, the team needed to identify what stood out in each market. With 20 or 30 in-depth interviews to work through, keeping track of which comments came from which group used to be time-consuming and cumbersome.
BTInsights makes it easier to compare feedback across those groups and find quotes that illustrate the differences. Researchers can see what participants have in common and where their views differ, with supporting comments to help explain those findings.
Bringing Research Findings to Life With Video Showreels
Candid Counsel also uses BTInsights to create showreels, which are short videos that combine selected clips from the research. These give clients a way to hear participants explain their views and see their reactions to an ad or message.
The team starts with the story it wants to tell. Researchers pull quotes and timestamps from the transcripts, prepare a script, and agree on the direction with the client. That includes deciding how to introduce each section and if the material should become one video or several.
Once the script is agreed, assembling the video is quick. The team pulls the clips, puts them together, adjusts the order where needed, and makes any final cosmetic changes.
Once we have alignment on the script, creating the final showreel couldn’t be simpler.
For one trade association’s messaging study, Candid Counsel used focus group footage alongside quantitative findings to show how participants thought through an issue and responded to the messaging.
For John, hearing several participants explain how a message changed their thinking makes the findings feel more real. Clients can hear those reactions in participants’ own words, giving them a clearer sense of the response behind the numbers.
The Result: More Time to Interpret and Present the Findings
With all transcripts in one place and quotes connected to their source, the team spends less time digging through documents for evidence.
That time can help the team deliver work sooner or give researchers more room to analyze the findings. Once the analysis is ready, finding the supporting quotes can be an afternoon’s task rather than something that needs several days built into the schedule.
The change also helps before the final report is ready. Candid Counsel can share interim updates that pair emerging themes with participants’ comments, giving clients early evidence to consider while the research is still progressing.
“Even before we do the full analysis,” John says, the team can share initial themes and supporting quotes. “Pulling it takes minutes.”
Clients get to see the team’s interpretation alongside the words behind it. And when the findings call for a video, researchers have a straightforward way to bring those voices into the presentation.
Make Focus Group and Interview Analysis Easier With BTInsights
Candid Counsel saves an estimated four to six hours per project on quote searching alone. Researchers can then put that time and energy into interpreting findings and deciding how to present them, with supporting quotes and video showreels helping participants’ voices become part of the story.
Want to see how BTInsights could do the same for your team? Book a demo to see our Interview Analysis platform in action.
