Asking vs. listening: A comparative analysis of focus groups and text mining customer online reviews

While focus groups and thematic analyses are still common, text mining of social media posts and online reviews (i.e. electronic Word of Mouth (eWoM)) is becoming increasingly popular across the consumer research landscape. This paper aims to compare the type of insight generated by each of these two approaches, and to reflect on the implications of those differences. This will aid the managerial and conceptual understanding of customer insight. By ‘asking’ in focus groups, as well as ‘listening’ to reviews, the study reinforces the benefits of methodological pluralism (i.e. combining qualitative and quantitative methods). This study illustrates the former by comparing the outcomes of an aspect-based sentiment analysis of eWoM, with a thematic analysis of a focus group discussion. Both studies investigate the purchase intentions, or experiences of customers, regarding refurbished washing machines.