Marketing Research: Personal/Face-to-Face Interviews and Computer-Assisted Personal Interviews

Research estimates that there are many interview related problems in marketing research company; Personal/ face-to-face interviews and computer-assisted personal interviews is one of them. Survey research faces many consumers which contribute to showing the interests of consumers. Quantitative interviewing methods include personal interviews, telephone interviews, mail surveys and online surveys where each interview has been divided into some parts. This essay is intended to demonstrate personal interviews, the advantages and disadvantages of each interview and draw a logical conclusion. Face to face methods of collecting information’s tends to be more effective form than other non-personal forms of data collection which leads to misinterpretation.


Introduction
Survey research is a method for collecting information by interviewing to achieve information with numerous respondents which, in turn, can be described by large number of visions. Additionally, survey research faces many consumers which contribute to showing the interests of consumers. Surveys are the proper way to make appropriate statistical information; as a result, the straightforwardness of survey research makes it practical method [1,2]. Quantitative interviewing methods have been divided to some parts. This paper is intended to demonstrate personal interviews, the advantages and disadvantages of each interview.

Personal Interviews
To begin with, Personal interviews are considered as more popular, flexible and the primary method of gathering information. These interviews can be performed at many places such as home target, shopping malls, office, restaurant, university and parks [1]. Depending on the facts of modernization and technology development, the personal interview is mentioned to be traditional and advanced. Undoubtedly, the age, gender, religion and salary has played significant roles in human society characterizing the respondents influence on the result of interviews (Table 1) [3].

Personal interviews Telephone surveys Mails surveys
Online surveys

Door to door interviews
Traditional Telephone interviews

One-time mail surveys
Office interviews Computer assisted telephone interviews Fax surveys

Mall intercept interviews
Fully automated telephone interviews

Mail Panels
Omnibus interviews E-mail surveys Computer assisted personal interviews

Traditional/ Primary method interviews
These survey methods are generally done through face to face interactions in which we have four properties: the researcher, the interviewer, the respondents and the interview environments. The researchers have the tendency to choose the environments for interviews by examining of what data should be collected [2,4].

Door-to-door interviews:
Door-to-door interviews are the kind of interviews which take place in consumer's home. In comparison to other survey methods, this interview has been more popular at earlier times. It has been considered as the best method of face to face interviews, which is mainly because of conditions in the interview [4]. First, the respondents are in their own home which leads to safeness, comfort and honest answers. However, due to crime reasons, some household would not like to allow strange people to come in their homes. In addition, people prefer to take a rest after stressful day than to face a torrent of questions. In this case, researchers make an appointment to conquer this problem [2]. According to Churchill et al., this method is affected by the culture and life style [5]. For example, it has not been performed in Saudi Arabia, while it takes place in US.

Office interviews/ Executive interviewing:
This method includes respondents and interviewers in office. In office interviews, the most topics are information about industrial products. Basically, the above process is expensive due to fact of finding a relatively experienced person in decision making of preferred product [4].

Mall-Intercept interviews:
Mall intercept interviews or more often called as shopping-centre interviews/shopping-mall intercept interviews. The interviewer is located at the entrance or at selected locations of the mall making random approaches to the respondent. The way of interview may vary by questioning at the same instance or by inviting them to special facility in the mall. It is also referred as "the economic version of the door to door interviews saving on the travel time and gas mileage" [6].
Omnibus surveys: These surveys are done on regular basis (weekly, monthly, quarterly or semi-annually) with the questions provided by number of separate clients. Each company client has its own questions and survey objectives, where the interviewer must consider all the material. The most advantage of this survey is that the clients share the costs depending on the number of questions enquired and in helping the client to estimate the evaluating ideas of the respondent [2].
Self-Administered questionnaires: In Self-Administered interviews, there is no interviewer. The respondents are asked to complete questionnaires without conversation. On one hand, the existence of interviewers would encourage respondents to continue the interviews. On the other hand, elimination of interviewer and computer facilities makes this method cheaper. These are some disagreements about this [4].
Nevertheless, this method has some disadvantages. The absence of interviewer gives rise to confusion; and has imposed a heavy burden on questionnaire designer's shoulders [2]. Self-Administered interviews are usually performed in mall, airports, restaurants, hotel to collect information depending on the client's satisfaction [4].
• Communication of personal interviews contributes to collecting more information. Moreover, interviewers have this chance to show picture, graphic, sample of production, scale to respondents [3,5].
• Personal interviews give the researcher an opportunity to ask beyond the main investigation [2].

¾ Disadvantages
• The unavoidable characteristics in this method made it more expensive owing to gathering information from different geographic places [2].
• The style of questions and the appearance of interviewer can influence the respondent's reaction [1].
• One of the shortcomings of this method is that the conversation may be embarrassing; as a consequence, respondent can reject the question [4].

Modern/Advanced/ New methods
Computer assisted personal interviews: Interviewing methods which are the most convenient way for the data collection in marketing research shows a dramatic change from the last few decades, due to the unwillingness of the common people and modernization of the world through introduction of computers made it easier in data collection [3].
Description: Computer assisted personal interview (CAPI) are the easiest method of modern approach when compared to the other new non-personal approaches. It does not require the proper understanding of all the computer process. The hardware which is used for this kind can be of PDA's, computer and high-end laptops. But these devices are already installed with certain software which is relatively accessible by a common man [7].
The idea of CAPI is that, the respondent is subjected to an interview where the interviewer uses transportable devices (notebooks, pen pads, etc.). The work of the interviewer is to project the data transfer from the interviewing area to the institute which is conducting the survey and vice versa using the software. Furthermore, the special software usage helps in reducing the bias generated with answering and skipping the question which are not important to the individual based on the earlier answer. For example, "if a person gives his age as 20 years in one question and number of years of marriage as 20 in another the program will not be considered until the consistency is restored" [8]. The multimedia properties allow the interview to provide the pictures and sound sequence of the subject, or the subject voice can also be recorded with the answers.
On practices there are other different forms of computer assisted interviews, for example computer assisted self-interviews (CASI), computer assisted telephonic interview (CATI), computer assisted web interviews (CAWI), and in every case the basic strategies are more over similar using the platform. The only difference between the CAPI and other methods is the research helps in reading the questions to the responder and keying the result directly into the computer. Hence, the CAPI is the easier way and in the reduction of bias [6].

¾ Advantages
• The most basic advantage is rapid way of the gathering of the survey data which is faster than the human interview approach.
• Due to the proper programming and software used, this approach guarantees zero interview errors.
• Efficient in providing with various graphic perspectives, high quality videos and pictures in related to subject discussed [3].

¾ Disadvantages
• The completion of the survey cannot be chosen according to their own schedules.
• However, the CAPI does not require any technical skill, but in contradicting way the respondent should have at least a minimum knowledge of procedure under which he is subject too.
• In some condition, the set-up cost is high because it varies depending on the place [3].

Conclusion
To sum up, marketing research is the understanding of consumers to the marketer which can be reached through various data collection methods for improvisation. The interaction in person provides the exact emotion, vision, intensions and promotion of unbiased data pertaining to the relevant case studies. Hence, the face to face methods of collecting information's tend to be more effective form than other non-personal forms of data collection which leads to misinterpretation. Tangibility of personal interviews, for respondents, contributes still in using this method in our technological word.