80 Focus Group Questions That Actually Get Answers

Five rules for questions that work

1. Ask about the past, not the future. "Tell me about the last time you..." beats "Would you ever..." because memory is evidence and prediction is theater.
2. One thing at a time. "How do you feel about the price and the packaging?" gets you an answer about neither.
3. Open the funnel before you narrow it. General experience first, your specific stimulus second, or you'll contaminate everything after the reveal.
4. Ban the word 'like.' "Do you like it?" invites politeness. "What would stop you from using this?" invites the truth.
5. Write follow-up probes in advance. "Tell me more," "what makes you say that," and "who disagrees?" do more work than any clever main question.

Warm-up and opener questions (1-10)

The first five minutes buy the next fifty-five. Openers should be easy, concrete, and answerable by everyone, building the habit of talking before anything sensitive arrives.

1. Tell us your first name and the last thing you bought that you were genuinely happy with.
2. Walk me through how [activity, e.g. planning dinner] went at your house this week.
3. When you hear [category, e.g. "meal kits"], what's the first thing that comes to mind?
4. How do you currently handle [problem area]? Walk me through the last time.
5. What's working well about how you do [task] today?
6. What's the most annoying part of [task] as it is now?
7. If a friend asked you to recommend a [category product], what would you say and why?
8. How did you choose the [product/service] you currently use?
9. What have you tried in this category that you stopped using? What happened?
10. On a scale of 1-10, how satisfied are you with your current solution, and what's keeping it from a 10?

Product and experience questions (11-25)

1. What problem were you hoping this would solve when you first tried it?
2. Walk me through the last time you used it. Start to finish.
3. What almost stopped you from getting started?
4. What surprised you, good or bad, in the first week?
5. If this product disappeared tomorrow, what would you actually do instead?
6. What do you do right before and right after using it?
7. Which feature would you fight to keep? Which could vanish without you noticing?
8. When has it let you down? What did you do?
9. What workaround have you built around it?
10. How would you explain this product to a colleague in one sentence?
11. Who else is affected by your use of this? What do they think?
12. What's it replacing in your budget or your time?
13. What would have to be true for you to use it twice as often?
14. What's the closest competitor you considered, and what tipped the decision?
15. If you were in charge of this product for a day, what's the first thing you'd change?

Messaging and advertising questions (26-40)

Show the stimulus (headline, ad, landing page) only after the general questions above, then ask:

1. Without looking back at it, what did that say? (Comprehension first, always.)
2. In your own words, what is this company selling?
3. Who do you think this is for? Is that you?
4. What's the strongest word or phrase in there? The weakest?
5. What do you want to know that this doesn't tell you?
6. Does anything here sound too good to be true?
7. What kind of company do you picture behind this message?
8. What would you expect this to cost, just from the message?
9. Which of these two versions would make you keep reading, and what specifically makes the difference?
10. If you saw this in your feed, would you stop? Be honest about why not.
11. What's the next thing you'd want to happen after reading this?
12. Does this remind you of any other company's messaging?
13. What's missing that would make you trust it more?
14. If this claim is true, how would it change your week?
15. Rewrite the headline in the words you'd actually use to describe this to a friend.

Pricing and value questions (41-52)

1. What do you pay today, in money or time, to handle this problem?
2. Before I show the price: what would you expect something like this to cost?
3. At what price would this feel like a bargain? At what price would you question the quality?
4. At what price does this become not worth thinking about?
5. What would you need to believe to pay [target price] happily?
6. Which of these plans would you pick, and what did you look at first?
7. What does this price say about the product?
8. What would you expect to be included that isn't listed?
9. Have you paid for something similar before? How did that feel afterward?
10. If the price went up 20% next month, what would you do?
11. Would you rather pay per [unit] or a flat rate? Why?
12. Whose money is this: yours, your boss's, your company's? How does that change things?

Concept testing questions (53-66)

1. In your own words, what is this?
2. What problem does this solve for you, if any?
3. What was your very first reaction, the one before you got polite?
4. What's the best thing about this idea? The worst?
5. Who do you know who needs this more than you do?
6. What would you use this for that we haven't mentioned?
7. What would stop you from trying it? What would stop you from sticking with it?
8. What does this remind you of? Is that good or bad?
9. If this existed today, when specifically would you use it next?
10. What's confusing about it? Read it again if you need to. What's still unclear?
11. What would make this a no-brainer instead of a maybe?
12. Which part of this feels hard to believe?
13. If you could change one thing about the concept, what and why?
14. Should this exist? Defend your answer to the group.

Closing questions (67-74)

1. Of everything we discussed, what stuck with you most?
2. Has anything you heard from the group changed your mind today? What?
3. If the company takes one action based on this conversation, what should it be?
4. What didn't I ask about that I should have?
5. Describe this product to the next group in one sentence.
6. What would you tell the CEO if they were sitting here?
7. Final vote: in or out? One sentence on why.
8. Anything you held back that you want on the record?

The six probes that do the real work (75-80)

1. "Tell me more about that."
2. "What makes you say that?"
3. "Can you give me a specific example, a real one, from your life?"
4. "Who here sees it differently?" (The disagreement is the data.)
5. "You hesitated just now. What was that?"
6. "If you had to choose anyway, which way do you lean?"

Assembling the discussion guide

A 60-minute guide holds 12 to 16 main questions, not 80. Structure: five minutes of openers, twenty on current behavior, twenty on the stimulus or concept, ten on pricing or prioritization, five to close. Pick from the sections above, keep one question per line of inquiry, and write your probes underneath each. Then pilot it: the first run of any guide always has a leading question, a dead end, or an ordering problem, and it's much cheaper to find them before recruiting humans.