Burke has been a pioneer in making online focus groups a viable method of qualitative research. Since 1997, Burke has hosted hundreds of online focus groups for a wide range of clients, even crossing borders with international groups that have captured responses of participants from around the globe.

Online focus groups produce meaningful responses without the tapes and time demands of more traditional qualitative research. Travel is eliminated for moderators and clients. In addition, other organizational stakeholders can observe discussions from the comfort of their desks or homes.

Burke maintains access to up-to-date online focus group facilities, ensuring clients have the most cutting-edge tools for online qualitative research. Features include whiteboard capabilities for displaying images, as well as the ability to compile quantitative survey results quickly and display those findings back to the group for further exploration.

Burke clients can also count upon:

• Security. Access to the online focus group site is strictly restricted to a pre-defined list of attendees. While clients are free to view the focus group by using passwords defined for them, there is no way the results can be seen by unauthorized individuals.
• Ease of participation. All that is required to participate in Burke online focus groups is a World Wide Web browser. No special software downloads are required.
• Private discussion channels. In a normal chat room, conversations are public and all discussion is seen by all attendees. The Burke online focus group environment allows for private channels between clients and the moderator, as well as between the moderator and individual participants.
• Transcriptions. Proceedings are recorded into databases that serve as perfect transcripts of the sessions and are available immediately. Every comment is associated with a writer and the time when it was written. Transcripts can later be reconfigured into searchable, relational information databases.

What truly sets Burke apart from other research organizations is the skill of its online focus group moderators. Their experience allows them to stay in charge of discussions, revealing new topics to participants in accordance with client requests. They are familiar with the bursts of online focus group responses and know how to phrase questions in order to draw out in-depth, textual responses. The experience of Burke moderators enables them to offer clients good advice on "no-show" rates, reminders and incentives. Because of their expertise, they have been published and quoted in such publications as American Demographics, Marketing News and Quirk's Marketing Research Review.

A leading computer-industry manufacturer sought to get qualitative input from software developers from around the globe. Countries such as Bulgaria and Portugal, however, had only limited numbers of qualified potential respondents and it would have been cost-prohibitive to send moderators to these areas for face-to-face focus groups. Because English is a common language among most software developers and almost all of them have relatively high-speed access to the Internet, Burke recommended conducting online focus groups.

E-mails were sent inviting software developers to participate, asking them about preferred times, and offering a choice of incentives (cash, gift certificate, or charity donation). The invitation e-mails also asked to make sure participants had adequate Internet connections and were comfortable with English. The Burke moderator crafted a discussion guide that avoided slang and other terms that would likely be unfamiliar to non-native speakers of English, and groups were scheduled for times when it would be evening for most respondents.

Confirmation e-mails were sent containing the facility URL, unique IDs and passwords, and instructions about how to use the facility, as well as requests that participants test the site prior to the scheduled group time. Reminders e-mails were sent on the day of the groups.

Two groups with European participants and two groups with Asia-Pacific participants were held, with lower percentages of "no-shows" than similar groups held with American software developers. The resulting discussions yielded immediate, lengthy transcripts, quite similar to those produced by online focus groups with exclusively American participants.