Interview-based segment comparison works when candidate groups differ on observable buying and operating conditions, every contrast links to source evidence, and unresolved sampling gaps remain explicit.
Define segments by conditions that affect the transaction
A useful candidate segment changes what the buyer does, pays, approves, or rejects. Company size may matter because approval paths differ, while job title may matter only when it changes access to the problem or budget. The comparison begins with the attributes already collected and asks which ones explain a meaningful difference in behavior, consequence, alternative, authority, or timing.
Each segment hypothesis should be testable against the completed wave. The dossier lists inclusion conditions, included participants, excluded participants, and ambiguous cases. GOV.UK guidance says research should cover different kinds of users and base user needs on evidence rather than assumptions, so the analysis should not construct a clean segment by silently discarding inconvenient interviews.
Compare the same evidence fields for every group
The segment table uses consistent fields: recent problem occurrence, frequency, operational consequence, current workaround, dissatisfaction with the alternative, purchase trigger, decision authority, constraint, and disqualifier. Consistent fields expose when one group looks stronger only because the interviewer asked it better follow-up questions.
Contradictions receive their own column. If several participants report costly manual work but decline to change because the process protects an approval requirement, the contradiction changes the offer. It may indicate that the proposed automation removes a control the segment values. Preserving the tension is more useful than averaging the positive and negative statements into moderate interest.
Choose the next test from the weakest link
The completed interviews may support one segment on problem severity while leaving authority or willingness to switch unresolved. The next test should target that missing link through another interview wave, a concrete offer, a workflow prototype, or an observed buying step. The dossier orders those tests by the decision they could change and states which current evidence would be overturned by a contrary result.
Where the service stops
Reality Contact, LLC analyzes authorized research materials, but does not recruit or contact participants, obtain consent, make product decisions, claim population representation, provide ethics approval, or treat a model-generated theme as evidence without source review. The buyer confirms consent and data-handling authority, reviews the source-linked dossier, chooses the primary segment, and approves the next offer, product, or research test. This is qualitative research analysis and document preparation, and it does not replace consent review, privacy counsel, ethics review, statistical research, or the buyer's product judgment. Findings describe the supplied interviews and their known limits; they do not estimate market prevalence or establish that a segment will buy.
Sources: GOV.UK guidance on learning user needs; GOV.UK research planning guidance.