Recruiting both sides of a quick-service restaurant brand

A consumer research team partnered with CleverX to understand fast-food behavior for a well-known restaurant brand. They wanted two matched sets of 45-minute video interviews: one with current customers of the brand, and one with customers of competing chains, so they could hear both what keeps people loyal and what makes people switch.

• Two separate groups were needed at the same time: the brand's own customers, and deliberate non-customers.
• Non-customers still had to live near one of the brand's outlets, so their views were realistic and not hypothetical.
• The customer group needed a specific regional and demographic mix, not just any diner.
• Brand employees and low-effort, incentive-chasing respondents had to be filtered out.

CleverX ran the two studies side by side with matching screeners.

• The non-customer screener captured location, recent restaurants visited, how easily they could reach the brand, and their last visit.
• The customer screener confirmed a visit in the last 90 days, plus location for regional balancing.
• Both ran as 45-minute moderated video interviews.
• Clear exclusion rules removed brand employees and low-effort respondents up front.

• 6 interviews completed across the two studies.
• 61% qualified on the non-customer study and 55% on the customer study.
• The non-customer screen surfaced real competitive context, showing which rival chains people had visited most recently.

• Running customer and non-customer studies as a matched pair gives a brand both loyalty and switching insight.
• An accessibility question keeps non-customer views grounded in realistic choices, not guesses.
• Balancing region and demographics in the screener is what makes a small qualitative sample representative.