Kennedy+M+Focus+Group+Report

Kennedy M TO: Mobile Team FROM: McGregor Kennedy SUBJECT: Mobile Focus Group Report DATE: March 23, 2010

Here is my report on a focus group I ran with four college age males on their thoughts and insight into mobile devices. I covered all five questions developed by our team. The report revealed that the participants were mainly satisfied with their current mobile device and provider but still viewed room for improvements.


 * Focus Group Rationale**

U.S. users of smart phones typically buy a subsidized handset from a particular cell phone provider. Consequently they must consider trade-offs between handset features and the price and quality of the cell network. The purpose of our focus groups is to determine what factors influence these decisions, and whether they are driven primarily by the choice of handset or the provider network. This information will let us better advise Proximity clients about which handsets and networks are most attractive to Gen-Y users.


 * Setting and Participants**

The 45 minute session was held in my home on Monday, March 15, 2010. The participants were:
 * Joey, 21, a Montclair Univ. junior business major, Verizon;
 * Mike, 22, a Rutgers Univ. senior liberal arts major, Verizon;
 * Eric, 20, Raritan Val. Comm. College sophomore, Verizon;
 * Brian, 20, Rutgers Univ. sophomore business major, Verizon.

We covered the following five topics during the session:
 * Session Topics**

__Reason for buying a particular handset__ The majority of the group had purchased their current handset because of its popularity and functionality. Three of the four participants were Blackberry users. Eric upgraded to a Blackberry curve from a Motorola Q claiming “ The Blackberry had a better operating system than Windows Mobile and was smaller.” Mike, the only participant currently without a Blackberry, purchased the Motorola Droid because of “its features and applications which are far superior to the Blackberry .”

__Cell provider’s influence__ All four participants belong to the same mobile network, Verizon Wireless. Brian and Joey, who are brothers, have been on Verizon wireless’ family plan since their first mobile devices and have always been pleased with their reception and customer service. Mike, who has possibly owned every top Smartphone in the past 3 years, claims he sticks with Verizon because they keep producing the most desirable devices (currently the Droid). Eric comes to Verizon from AT&T where he was dissatisfied with the difficulty of getting replacement devices. He finds Verizon’s customer service much better.

__Features and applications__ The use of applications was favored by all four participants. The most common applications used by all members were the internet browser, email viewer, and Visual Voicemail application (this group seemed to be very technologically savvy). For the Blackberry users, they all favored the use of blackberry’s trademark application, Blackberry Messenger (BBM). The users found it enabled them to communicate with friends much faster than text messaging. Mike, the one non Blackberry user, said he loves the Motorola Droid because he can customize practically anything he wants and is “not limited to Verizon’s strict constraints.”

__Satisfaction with mobile device & improvements__ All users were satisfied with their devices but are aware of some disadvantages. The Blackberry users expressed a need for Wi-Fi to be incorporated. They also would like to see a device that supports flash. “ I want to be able to stream any video online and not have to download a YouTube app” Brian says. Mike, the owner of the Motorola Droid, dislikes his qwerty keyboard being too flat, making the keys indistinguishable from one another. He also thinks the touch screen keyboard is poor because the keys are too close.

__Satisfaction with mobile provider__ All participants were completely satisfied with their mobile provider being Verizon. They found the service to be better than previous providers such as T-Mobile or AT&T. However, all users are on plans funded by their parents and are aware that Verizon’s plans are relatively more expensive than other providers. When asked if being self reliant would influence their choice of mobile provider, Brian suggested he would switch to T-Mobile because they offer less expensive plans for individuals. The other participants said they would look towards inexpensive plans also.


 * Findings**

This session revealed that my participants:

· Are satisfied with their mobile devices and provider; · View possible improvements for future models of their devices; · Would consider changing mobile providers if they had to pay their own bills.

With all participants being on Verizon’s network, this focus group gave me a very targeted analysis of mobile users on a specific network. It may prove useful to compare these results to the results of our other sessions where the participants used networks other than Verizon’s. This will give us an opportunity to see what influenced other cellular users to chose their current network.