Recently, Testpoint conducted a series of central location interviews to assess the liking of a new type of peach tea. These interviews were conducted with the CAPI (Computer Assisted Personal Interview) methodology. Do you want to know what it is and how it went? Let’s see step by step.

A face-to face interview

The CAPI interview is an interview conducted by an interviewer during a face-to-face meeting with a respondent. The interviewer has a tablet or a PC with a software that gives access to the questionnaire with the questions that respondents will have to answer. The software can be provided by the Client who commissioned the research and it works offline, so it is not necessary to have access to the Internet during the interview: the Internet connection will take place at a later time, when it will be necessary to download the collected data.

 

In the research we are talking about today, 100 people were recruited to taste a new product: it was a peach tea that had to be compared with two other similar products (competitors) already on the market, to evaluate consumer’s satisfaction.

 

The interviews took place in Milan and Rome: in each session 10 people were involved for about 20 minutes and each of the respondents tasted and evaluated the new drink and its competitors in succession. Of course, the tasting order was different (rotated) for the various respondents so that each drink, served in glasses identified with a code, had the same probability of being tasted first, second or last.

 

The interviewer asked the questions on the tablet: it was first required to examine the color of the drink, then the smell, and finally proceed with the tasting. This was done three times, that is, for the three products involved.

How it went

Let’s ask one of the participants to tell us about their experience. This is Monica, 35 y.o., from Rome:

 

“In the summer, I like to consume cold, thirst-quenching drinks such as tea in various flavors. I was therefore very happy to participate in this research in which peach teas had to be evaluated. I was contacted by phone by a very nice person who asked me a few questions to find out if I was the “right” person for this project, then set me an appointment for the test. I went to the Testpoint offices where the tasting and interview stations were set up. I was offered in succession three types of peach tea in glasses identified with a code. The interviewer invited me to evaluate the intensity of the color, then the smell, then the intensity of the taste, if it was too much or not enough sweet, if the peach taste was strong enough or not and so on for three times . In the end, I was asked to compare the three drinks and rank them in order of preference.

 

In total, the interview lasted about 20 minutes, but I must say that the time passed very pleasantly. I found the way of evaluating beverages very interesting: I did not imagine that there was such careful work before launching a product of this kind on the market ”