The agency has bought forward development to support an increased demand for online qual.
FlexMR has today launched an update to InsightHub which brings video focus groups to the online research platform. An evolution of the firm’s Live ChatMR tool, the development has been brought forward to accommodate and support the increased global demand for online qual. Live ChatMR, which previously provided real-time, text chat has become Focus GroupMR and now supports both video and text based qualitative research.
In-depth interviews and groups of up to four participants can take part in live video research, whilst up to twelve can take part in text chats. Stakeholders and decision makers can watch both types of session from a virtual observation room that includes a private chat facility. The tool also supports topic guides, visual stimuli and interactive tasks. At the end of a session, video recordings, text chat transcripts and task results are available immediately through a one-click export.
“It’s important that we, as an agency, are flexible and responsive to the needs of our clients. FlexMR has always had long term ambitions to include video in our real-time focus group offering. As we’ve witnessed the global pandemic force many qualitative projects online, we realised the urgent need to do something now.” said Paul Hudson, CEO of FlexMR. “I’m incredibly proud of this release. The team has been able to completely turn our existing product development timeline on its head and deliver a versatile tool that will really help our clients through the challenges they are currently facing.”
Focus GroupMR has been purpose built to facilitate individual and group conversations in real-time. FlexMR believe that the option to run both video and text chat sessions from a single tool provides unparalleled flexibility to research teams, and the versatility to get the right data for the right projects.
All sessions take place in a secure InsightHub platform. FlexMR holds both the ISO 27001:2013 and Cyber Essentials Plus certifications. The team is GDPR compliant and takes information security commitments seriously.
Paul Hurst, Software Developer at FlexMR, said of the new tool, “The power of visual connection has never been more apparent than in the exceptional times we’re living through. In order to help companies keep in touch with customers, we’ve worked in a collaborative, agile way to rebuild our live chat tool. It now incorporates video alongside the existing text chat, with some modernisation of the underlying technologies to freshen it up.
Consumers are becoming increasingly used to and confident in using video chat during the lockdown. Now is a great time for companies to use video to find out what consumers want and need both at the moment and in the more normal times to come.”
The upgrade has been made available to all InsightHub clients with an existing Live ChatMR licence for free, and significant discounts are being offered to support research teams taking their first steps or ramping up online qual activity. Development of the tool will remain ongoing to continuously add new features and functionality.