Benefits and limitations of qualitative data

Qualitative data is information based on opinions, attitudes, reasons, feelings and descriptions rather than mainly numbers. It helps a business work out why customers think or behave in a certain way, rather than just how many of them did something. What matters is the type of data, not how it was collected.

Benefits

• Detailed insight into motivations — customers explain their reasons in their own words, so the business learns what is really behind a choice.
• Reveals the unexpected — open answers can raise issues or ideas that the business never thought to ask about.
• Helps improve products and marketing — knowing the reason lets a business change the right thing to meet customer needs.

For example, a bakery leaves a comments box beside its new lunch deal. Several customers write that the queue is far too slow at half past twelve. The owner had only wanted to know which sandwich people preferred, but the comments point to a serving problem that is losing lunchtime sales.

Limitations

• Harder and slower to analyse — answers arrive as words, so someone must read, group and interpret them instead of simply adding up figures.
• Smaller samples — collecting detailed answers takes time, so fewer people usually take part. The findings may be less representative and harder to generalise to all customers.
• Difficult to compare, measure or analyse statistically — opinions do not fit neatly into averages, percentages or other numerical tests.
• Subjective interpretation and researcher bias — two people may read the same comments differently, and a researcher may notice the answers that match what they already believe.
• No sense of scale — it may not show the size of a market or the scale of demand. Six customers loving an idea does not prove that thousands would buy it.