Implication or recommendation?

Picture this scene: call it Project Perfecto: the Perfect Qualitative Project. You (our hero!) were challenged with a large, complex, research dilemma. You somehow worked your way through the tangled internal politics with the client. You clarified the issues, recruited just the right people, asked the right questions, probed beneath the surface, and unraveled several breakthrough insights. Gasps, applause from the back room! You can't stop to bask, you're way too focused on wrapping up the final comments of what looks to be a groundbreaking study that will change the industry's strategic direction for years to come. At last, the voice of the consumer is heard, and you're the megaphone!

There are at least two possible endings for this scenario.

One I'll call Recommendations. In this ending, all the loose ends are snipped, all the questions have tidy answers, and the client goes home happy with an action plan presented by the dapper, all-knowing Inspector Research, who solved the problems and saved the day.

The other I'll call Implications. In this ending, complications are still a bit complicated. Questions have answers, but the answers often lead to new questions. The client goes away with a depth of awareness and insight unavailable in any other way, and the researcher, like a grungy modern detective, has no intention of wrapping up the case in a gasp of awareness and an admission of guilt. This research has brought depth and light to an interesting subject. The client now has to balance the new awareness with other priorities and projects, accepting the responsibility for what's next...the next questions to ask, the next strategy to pursue, and, perhaps, the next things to do.

Who would you rather be? Inspector Recommendo, who delivers the goods - wrapped up and ready to go? Or Detective Implicatio, who brings insight, understanding, and qualitative suggestions about future directions? What's the right ending?

Implications most important

Recommendations have allure. They make the client happy - when they agree with the client's plans - and they make the researcher feel like a hotshot solver of the insoluble. But, however attractive that may be, it is my contention that offering definitive recommendations based on qualitative research is a contradiction in terms. I propose the idea that implications, not recommendations, are the most important product of qualitative research.

I did not always think this way. I've worked both sides of the one-way mirror. As a buyer of research for a major corporation, I requested recommendations. And, as a supplier of research to small and large, local and international clients, I am often asked to add my recommendations. The client wants answers, and the researcher is hired to supply some answers as the coordinator of consumer response. It's also an ego boost - who among us doesn't have an opinion on a subject when a powerful client asks the question, "What should I do?" We channel surf with the best of people, and have opinions on a lot of wildly diverse and subtle subjects. Who better to recommend changes in products, processes, presentation or pricing? Who better to sum up the consumer input in the form of a prescription for improvement?

I now think the client is the one who is better suited to move from implications to recommendations - from information-gathering to decision-making. After wrestling with this issue for several years, it is my opinion that the researcher as recommender is directly at odds with the statement of limitations that precedes nearly all qualitative research reports. The statement reads something like this:

Limitations

It is important to note that these focus groups sought to develop insight into respondent attitudes and needs, generate hypotheses, and suggest direction. The reader of this report should remember that small sample size, special recruiting methods, and regional limitations associated with this type of research preclude drawing any definitive conclusions.

Note that it says "develop insight...generate hypotheses...suggest direction." These are quite different aspirations from those found in recommendations.

Let's start with definitions. According to the dictionary, "recommendation" is derived from the Middle English recommenden, meaning to praise. It means "to present as worthy of acceptance...to endorse as fit, worthy, or competent...to advise."

"Implication" is derived from the root word "imply," which evolved from the Middle English emplien, meaning to enfold or entwine - "to involve by inference association, or necessary consequence rather than by direct statement." So, a recommendation is an endorsement of a course of action - it says, "Do this." An implication exhibits a relationship, something implied - it says, "This suggests this." It's a matter of strapping on a feedbag versus leading a horse to water. In the first case, the proverbial horse has no choice, in the second, the horse makes the decision.

I do not think this is simply "toe-may-toe" vs. "toe-mah-toe" semantics. The difference is significant, and, in my opinion, the resulting clarity of purpose enhances the role of research in the client's arsenal of effective marketing tools. Recommendations offer a to-do list based on a small sampling. Implications offer a buffet of choices based on the leading indicators of a research sampling. There's a world of difference between the two approaches.

The strong prescriptive nature of a recommendation goes beyond the researcher's responsibility, I contend, whereas the logical connections made by implications better bear the burden of research as a tool of corporate decision makers. So can researchers reconcile offering recommendations generated from a respondent base that is small in size, selective in method, narrow in scope, and limited by geography, time, and respondent availability? Of course they can. Clients expect it and the client is the boss.

Clients are part of the solution

This goes to the heart of the matter - the shared expectations of client and supplier. We need to clarify the results the client can expect to receive and articulate the superiority of implications versus the knee-jerk request for recommendations. Giving the client the results of the research with the implications clarified is the right solution. I contend that we are doing a disservice to our profession and to our clients' business needs by supplying recommendations about subjects outside our field of expertise.

Again, when I was hiring out research on the corporate, client side, I wanted recommendations. Now that I'm on the outside being hired as an independent research supplier, I started adding recommendations to my results. I thought that that was what the client wanted. (Ask some of my clients, they'll probably tell you that I'm not shy about my opinions.) Now I'm seeing things another way. I see research recommendations as opinions, and no more. The situation calls for focused expertise from both sides - research, probing implications, and clients turning the implications into recommended decisions.

Now that I cover many product categories in many industries, and deal with respondents who are end-consumers, gift purchasers, and corporate business-to-business users, I feel less responsible offering prescriptive results from my efforts. I hesitate to say, "Do this." I am more comfortable, and feel more honest and successful pointing out the linkages, and allowing the client to make the connections and make up their own mind about what action to take.

The distinction is basically between information-gathering and decision-making. Implications provide direction based on information gathered through research. Recommendations lead the way to a decision based upon that information. I think it is completely within the scope of the research facilitator to seek the deep implications from the information that has been gathered. It is also the distinct domain of the client to make decisions based on the information gathered. It's that next step - making decisions - that goes beyond the scope of the research practitioner.

Here is an example of what I consider an implication from a study I recently worked on. A company needed to understand why a new program targeted at a specific market segment generated an excessive number of calls to its customer care center. The research findings indicated that many elements of the program were counterintuitive, and that many of the customers in the program failed to take any responsibility for educating themselves about the program despite numerous mailings of material.

The findings suggested to us that the program needed to be simplified or made more intuitive. We offered examples of how this might be done, but we offered no definitive recommendations. The findings also suggested that expecting these customers to read the material sent to them about the program was unrealistic. This, in turn, suggested to us that the responsibility for educating customers about the program needed to shift away from the customer to the company. Again, we offered an example of how this might be done, but shied away from offering any recommendations.

Notice that I didn't tell or direct my client to do anything. I restated a key finding emanating from the study, explained what it suggested to me and offered an example to clarify the linkage I was making.

Superior tool of analysis

I would contend further that implication-seeking as a tool is superior to recommendation-making. When we focus on openness to all that the research implies we open ourselves to a wealth of possibilities. Some of the possibilities are literal - the quotes and phrases and physical actions of respondents; others are more figurative - seeing linkages and relationships between clusters of respondents, between demographics and psychographics of respondents, and all sorts of other beneath-the-surface motivators. Also, implications are derived from what was not said, arguments not made, complaints not surfaced, or problems not articulated. The search for implications leads the researcher to dig deeper and look longer at the evidence presented to gather all the information available and make all the connections that are relevant. This is qualitative research on steroids - the process at full efficiency.

Looking for recommendations, however, leads to bottom-line, closed thinking. Once you've prescribed that "this plus that equals four," there's no more to explore. The process of answer-seeking to make the right decisions gives short shrift to the analytical, creative mind, which tests every bit of evidence to corroborate decisions and simplifies to get to the answer. This process short-changes that exploration process for the destination. It's answer-thinking rather than expansive-thinking.

It must be admitted however that implication-seeking is slower, messier, and more complicated. Implications deliver all the contradictory evidence without oversimplifying. Implications can be more difficult to convey; complications stay intact because complex issues are, well, complex. They're not dumbed down for the sake of a simple answer. Recommendations are a bit easier. They tend to simplify and remove contradictions in order to get to the broadest, most efficient answer possible. But, again, it is in the client's best interest to deliver a multi-faceted, richly detailed, fully accountable report of implications. From those implications, it is the client's job to understand and incorporate these implications in the decision-making process, and in any final actions resulting from the research.

I believe that there are some instances where recommendations are an integral part of the research assignment. Where there is a legitimate need for urgent, actionable recommendations, then I would contend that this is the line of questioning to the respondents: "What should the client do? Give us your recommendations." In this case, the research is not so much attitude-probing as advice-gathering. This doesn't happen often, but it would be one instance where I would support recommendations.

But in the normal course of qualitative research, I believe it is better to teach a client to fish than to hand over the proverbial filet. Implications properly handled provide clients a way to think about an issue. Understanding the connections revealed by research is a powerful business skill. Even though it is tempting to deliver pre-digested recommendations, some restraint should be used in interpreting results and extrapolating meaning. It's better for both provider and client when skills are focused with laser-like precision on the scope of the business at hand. Research focuses on implications; the business client focuses on recommendations for his or her own internal systems. In the transfer of skills, you're not giving up power or future business, you're gaining a better, smarter, more effective client, and earning the respect and loyalty of a customer who will come back to you again and again.

A synthesis of the two

What's needed finally is a synthesis - an active interaction between the two disciplines of implication presentation and recommendation-making. The synthesis begins with expectations. Research needs to be clear in saying that its scope is respondent relations and representation. Research is the expert in finding, drawing out and exploring the values, attitudes, interests, passions and lifestyle needs of respondents - and then accurately presenting the implications of those findings as they relate to the client's interests. The client is the expert in presenting stimulus, clarifying the business needs, and, after the research, in incorporating the implications into its own decision-making processes. The recommendations for prescriptive action based on respondent reactions should clearly be in the hands of the client. Implications are the true domain of the researcher.