Socrates is software. It is the only software of its kind and works as a virtual moderator.

Socrates is set-up much like an IDI — we write a discussion guide and determine the key topics we want to cover. But after that, the value of this proprietary tool comes to light.

Socrates allows the respondent to guide the conversation, and responds with automated probing based on the content of the responses.

How does that work?  … It’s ok, we get that a lot.

Quester spent years perfecting the art of Active Listening by conducting phone and face-to-face interviews. The foundational elements of our unique interviewing discipline serve as the basis for Socrates.

So the software presents a topic, and the respondent enters a response, then the system follows up with one of over 15,000 possible probes  focused on definition, rationale, implication or general elaboration. Below is an example of an exchange using just the base intelligence of the system:

Socrates:  Talk to me about what you take into consideration when buying cereal.
Respondent:  Nutritional value
Socrates:  I noticed you mentioned nutritional value, help me understand what you mean by that.
Respondent:  things like calories, vitamins and minerals

Now suppose we’d spent some time with you to build in additional intelligence into the Socrates probing capabilities using Targeted Probes. Targeted Probes are triggered when specific language is used by the respondent.

For demonstration purposes, let’s say our client wanted to understand exactly what type of nutritional elements were most important. In that case, Quester’s team would build in probes to take the conversation in that direction when respondents raised the issue of nutrition. The exchange might look something like this:

Socrates:  Talk to me about what you take into consideration when buying cereal.
Respondent:  Nutritional value
Socrates:  I noticed you mentioned nutritional value, I’d like to understand what specific nutritional elements are most important to you.  Talk to me more about that.
Respondent:  I want to make sure it doesn’t have too much sugar, and that it is high in fiber since my kids don’t eat much of that

Socrates is most effective in modules with multiple topics designed to take a respondent through their full thought process, such as benefit laddering . This technique enables our analysts to trace that thought flow and uncover the linkages necessary to guide consumers to the desired behavior. With a little help from our friend … Aristotle.

Socrates interviews generate rich qualitative data and transcripts that Quester’s trained linguistic analysts explore thoroughly for key ideas — aided by our proprietary text processing tool called Aristotle.

Our analysis goes beyond typical qualitative coding, involving a disciplined exercise of identifying and defining the key themes within the text. While Quester’s focus is on the qualitative insights revealed in the data, our tools add the ability to provide quantitative support for the qualitative learnings — by identifying the prevalence of those key themes. We look for not only what your customers are saying, but how they are saying it, how often they are saying it, and what difference it makes to you.

Although our tools can be used to quantify the data, we take our cues from some of the great minds in history, like Einstein, who once said:

So, our focus is on the nuances in language that provide insights that reveal why consumers do what they do — those nuances are not always quantifiable, but they are always impactful.