Qualitative research
Also known as Qual research
Qualitative research is the study of customer attitudes, motivations and behaviours through non-numerical methods such as interviews, observation and open-ended feedback, aimed at understanding why people act as they do.
How is qualitative different from quantitative research?
Quantitative research measures how many and how much with numbers; qualitative research explains why and how with words and observation. Quant tells you a metric moved, qual tells you the reason.
Strong teams pair them: qual to form hypotheses and understand causes, quant to test how widespread they are.
What are common qualitative methods?
Customer interviews, usability tests, open-ended survey questions, support and sales call reviews, diary studies and contextual observation.
What is the main limitation of qualitative research?
Small samples mean you cannot generalise a percentage from it. Its strength is depth and explanation, not statistical representativeness, which is why it is best paired with quantitative signals.
Qualitative research, in brief
- What is qualitative research?
- Qualitative research studies customer attitudes, motivations and behaviours through non-numerical methods such as interviews, observation and open-ended feedback, to understand why people act as they do.
- When should you use qualitative versus quantitative research?
- Use qualitative research to understand causes and form hypotheses, and quantitative research to measure how widespread those patterns are. Most decisions benefit from both.
Put the theory to work.
Corha turns your calls, tickets and surveys into living personas and evidence-backed insights, so these ideas become part of how your team works, not just definitions.