This is the second in the short series of posts on Challenges facing Qualitative research in China. As I said before, the idea is not to castigate research agencies or trash the ways of some of the marketers. Instead it is to highlight research & marketing issues plaguing various marketing and research systems & highlight that if we address these we can find a way to superior understanding of people in China. And consequently do better marketing and market planning.
In this second part, I will share some thoughts about the way we ask the questions in our researches.
It pains me to see how we run our consumer immersion groups.
Why are we so direct?
After every response – we simply barge in with a “why?” or “why not?”
Do we really believe that people will give an honest explanation for their usual behaviour?
Add to this, people in China take much longer to open up than people from most of the other cultures that I have been exposed to. We need to respect this cultural truth. China is a lot about steady conversations and negotiations. It is not a “on and off” culture, it is not about this way or that way, it is not the start and stop mindset. It is a continuum. It is about maneuvering around and about topics – touching them enough to give a hint rather than making them obvious.
Our way of talking to people needs to learn from this.
My long-time friend once told me how Chinese and Westerners think differently. He explained it to me through a business meeting analogy. For the Westerners – if a meeting is short it must be very good because everybody was talking the same language and thus not much conversation was required to reach an agreement. Contrast this with the Chinese idea of a good meeting. The Chinese think that if the meeting is short – it did not really achieve much. The underlying principle is that it takes longer to know people and understand their motives – too quick and you have not really achieved anything. On the contrary, if it is longer – it sure means that it helped people know each other more. Knowing people is most important. All the business can follow.
Now think about our interview situations - how can we rush through it with a 100-bullet point checklist?
I often say – “In China – slow down, if you want to speed up. Things move forward briskly when we do not labour them too much. Conversations are no exception. Of course we need answers to “why” and “why not” but we need not ask it that way. We need to make the questions indirect, help respondent speak about himself without feeling shy about it by. Make it less sharp and allow the real answers to flow in. Only a comfortable respondent is a natural respondent.
A few more to come in this series.
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