Executive Interviews are formalized personal interviews conducted with elite or high-level professionals or decision-makers that obtain quantitative data on strategic matters. These are not open-ended qualitative interviews, but rather structured, using a questionnaire with forced values, rankings, or scales of metrics.

Common to B2B studies, market feasibility studies, or investment studies, executive interviews serve to provide insights at the executive level on trends, competition, business requirements, and the overall market. For example, they may be asked to assess the importance of different challenges facing the sector, provide budgets estimates, or rank different product preferences – all of which generates quantifiable information for analysis and supports decisions based on data.

Also, these interviews are done by trained individuals capable of approaching senior executives in a respectful and efficient manner if done over the phone or on a video call. In deference to the time constraints of interviewees, questions are designed to solicit data that can be measured or quantified, as well as short explanations.

A major benefit of taking executive interviews is having access to authority knowledge based on experience that standard surveying can overlook. This type of data is particularly useful for industries where there are few players or when going after a small, high value segment of the market.

The samples tend to be small, but quality input scales beautifully. The results can be summed up to find trends or used as a support of general market assumptions.

Quantitatively designed executive interviews enhance the credibility, relevance, and rigor of data collection, making them an important part of most higher-end market and business research.