Delivering high-quality business participants for a multi-day confidential focus group study.

This case study highlights how IDR supported a major co-creation research project by recruiting hard-to-reach SME banking customers for a series of in-person focus groups conducted under tight timelines and strict participation requirements.

Overview 

A leading insight and innovation consultancy partnered with IDR to recruit SME banking customers for an in-person co-creation project conducted in collaboration with a major global financial institution.

The study required business customers from a range of commercial profiles to participate in fixed-day focus groups held at a central location in London. Given the nature of the project, recruitment criteria were highly specific, with strict confidentiality requirements and limited participant flexibility.

Given B2B recruitment for in-person qualitative research can be challenging due to participant availability, the project required both precision recruitment and exceptional participant management to ensure full attendance across multiple days of fieldwork.

What We Did 

• Curation of three SME banking focus groups: IDR recruited three separate focus groups consisting of SME banking customers across a range of business profiles and sectors. In addition to the primary participants, the team secured multiple backup recruits to safeguard against last-minute dropouts and ensure continuity throughout the study.
• High-touch participant management: Recognizing the complexity of coordinating busy commercial participants, the IDR team implemented a highly proactive engagement strategy that included:
  
  • Participant communication and confirmation
  • Attendance management and reminder scheduling
  • Detailed qualification and screening processes
  • Confidentiality management and expectation setting
  • Backup participant contingency planning
  
  The project ultimately delivered 27 fully qualified recruits across three days of in-person fieldwork.
  
• On-site fieldwork support: IDR provided on-site project coordination, helping manage participant arrivals, session flow and the overall client experience during the focus group sessions.
  
  When additional recruitment support was required shortly before fieldwork began, the team was able to source the five additional qualified participants needed within a matter of days, a turnaround that would typically require significantly longer timelines for specialist B2B audience recruitment.

Outcome 

The project achieved full attendance across all IDR-recruited participants, demonstrating the team’s ability to deliver high-quality commercial audiences for fixed-date, in-person qualitative research under demanding conditions.

Despite the complexity of the brief and accelerated turnaround, every participant met the required quality standards, allowing the client to conduct uninterrupted sessions and maximize the value of the co-creation workshops.

The successful delivery reinforced IDR’s expertise in recruiting difficult-to-reach B2B audiences while balancing speed, quality and operational precision across high-stakes qualitative research projects.