PRIMARY DATA COLLECTION

Interview is a method whereby a respondent and a researcher can come into direct contact with each other in some form or the other. The researcher may go from door-to-door for interviews or may contact the respondents at some central place. The technique of interviews provides the researcher with an opportunity to ask the respondents any additional relevant questions. Modern techniques of recording may also be used to ensure accuracy, verification, etc. Many marketing researchers use this technique because it is useful to have accurate information for a research project.

Interview technique suffers from the following disadvantages:

• Cost: Interviews are more expensive than the other techniques.
• Difficulty in Sampling Control: No respondent can be forced to give an interview. Non-response can vitiate the character of a sample.
• Time-consuming: The interview technique is highly time-consuming, forcing the researcher to limit the size of his sample.
• Possibility of getting fictitious information.

Major interview methods include the following:

(a) Depth Interviews 
(b) Mail Interviews 
(c) Telephone Interviews 

Depth Interviews: 

By this methodology, an investigator continues searching inquiries to secure maximum amount of information as potential. His probe, of course, is conditioned by the response of the respondent. A private interview could be a two-way conversation an interviewer initiates to obtain information from the respondents. The roles of questioner and respondent are completely different.  They are usually strangers, and therefore the interviewer generally controls the topics and patterns of debate. 

   The results of the interview are sometimes insignificant for the respondent who is asked to supply data and has very little hope of receiving any immediate or direct benefit of this cooperation. If the interview is carried off with success, it is an wonderful information assortment technique. The best value of personal interview lies within the depth of knowledge and detail that can be secured. It far exceeds the information secured from telephone and self-administered questionnaires, mail surveys, or computer. The interviewer is in a position to try and do a lot of things to enhance the standard of the knowledge receive that with another method. 

Interviewers can note conditions of the interview, probe with extra queries, and gather supplemental data through observation. Interviewers even have a lot of control than with other forms of interrogation.  They can prescreen to confirm the right respondent is replying, and they can set up and control interviewing conditions. They can use special rating devices and visual materials. Interviewers also can befit to the language of the interview because he can observe the issues and effects the interview has on the respondent. However, the interview method is costly both in terms of money and time. A successful personal interview requires availability of the needed information from the respondents, an understanding by the respondent of his or her role, and adequate motivation by the respondent to cooperate.

The main advantages of depth interview are: 

Hidden Information: 

The main advantage of depth interview is that the researcher will, in all likelihood, access the information that he might not have otherwise got.
 
Flexibility: 

A depth interview offers flexibility to an interviewer because it is like an informal discussion between him and the interviewee on the latter’s experiences.
 
The following are the disadvantages of depth interview:

• Lack of Proper Structure and System: Depth interviews lack a systematically defined way of analyzing the information obtained. In the Indian marketing research context depth interviews lack popularity because of non-availability of professional personnel.
• Time-consuming: This method requires considerable amount of time in interviewing which might not be available.
• Difficulty in Tabulating and Analyzing the Data: Since this method lacks a proper structure and system the researcher faces a host of problems in tabulating and analyzing the data.

Mail Interviews
 
 A researcher takes interviews by mailing the questionnaire to respondent.
 
Telephone Interview’s

1.  A researcher ask questions to the respondents on telephone. 
2. Contributes in survey work as a unique mode of communication to collect information from respondents. 
3. Sampling and data collection costs for telephone surveys can run from 45 to 64 percent lower than comparable private interviews. 
4. It can be clubbed with immediate entry of the responses into a computer. 
5. Behavioral norms operate to the benefit of telephone interviewing. 
6. If someone is present, he usually answers the phone, and it is the caller who determines the purpose, length and end of the call. 
7. New technology, particularly caller identification systems where the receiver can decide whether a call is answered based on the caller identity, is expected to increase the non-contract rate associated with telephone surveys

Focus Group Interviews

• It is the best known and most of the people jointly participate in an unstructured indirect interview conducted by a moderator. 
• Here, attempts are made to focus the discussion on the problem areas in a relaxed, non-direct manner. Focus group interviews can be used for a number of different purposes. 
• It provides complex and varied data, because the discussion covers different group members. It saves time as well as cost. 
• However, there is difficulty in sample selection and samples are necessarily very small.
•  Responses may be inferred by what others have to say and suffers from difficulty in analyzing the results.