Service
Open-End Coding Services
Human-coded open-end verbatim with AI-assisted QA — fast, transparent, and built for modern research teams.
Focus Forward has been coding open-end verbatim since 2003. Our U.S.-based team reads every response by hand, builds code frames that match how you actually report findings, and uses AI to accelerate QA — not to replace the people who make the judgment calls. The result is faster turnaround on the work that matters and analysis you can defend in front of any stakeholder.
Our areas of expertise include:
- >>Market Research
- >>Medical & Healthcare
- >>Consumer & Shopper
- >>Web & Mobile Surveys
- >>B2B & Tech
- >>Employee Experience
- >>Academic & Dissertation
- >>Political & Media
- >>Brand & Concept Tests
- >>Qualitative IDIs
Modern research deserves modern coding —
delivered by Focus Forward.
Transparent Pricing
Open-end coding starts at a flat per-response rate with no hidden setup or rush fees. You get senior-level project management, a custom code frame, and the same price whether your study runs 500 verbatims or 50,000.
Human Coders, AI-Assisted QA
Every response is read and coded by an experienced U.S.-based analyst, not a black-box model. We use AI to surface inconsistencies and accelerate QA, so you get the nuance of human judgment with the speed of modern tooling.
Responsive Project Management
A dedicated U.S.-based project manager owns your study end to end. Mid-field code frame updates, rush turnarounds, and late-breaking questions get answered the same business day, every time.
How an Open-End Coding Project Runs at Focus Forward
Every study is owned by a senior project manager and coded by analysts who specialize in your category. Continuous training, structured QA, and modern tooling keep quality high while turnaround times stay tight — even on overnight and same-day requests.
- >>KICKOFF & SCOPING: Your project manager reviews the questionnaire, sample, and timing, then recommends the code frame structure, granularity, and delivery format that fits your analysis plan.
- >>CODER ASSIGNMENT: Each study is matched to U.S.-based coders with category expertise — medical, B2B, shopper, political — so the nuance shows up in the codes, not just the verbatim.
- >>CODING IN ASCRIBE: We code in Ascribe Coder, which gives you a live codebook, clean exports to SPSS, Excel, or your DP platform, and full audit trails on every change.
- >>AI-ASSISTED QA: Our in-house QA team layers AI consistency checks on top of human review — verifying NETS, SUBNETS, and judgment calls before anything reaches your inbox.
Our coding services are end-to-end — you stay with the same Focus Forward team from kickoff through final delivery. Here's what we handle in-house:
Codebook Creation
We build code frames from scratch or refine an existing one — organizing themes into NETS and SUBNETS that match how your team actually reports findings, not just how the data came in.
Open-End Verbatim
Long-form responses get read, interpreted, and multi-coded by hand. Every distinct idea in a verbatim gets captured, so your analysis reflects what respondents actually said, not just the first phrase a model latched onto.
Other-Specify Coding
Brand mentions, retailer names, and other-specify lists get coded against your existing pre-codes and extended where respondents went off-list — clean, deduped, and ready to drop straight into your tables.
Multilingual Coding
We translate and code verbatim from any language into a single unified frame, using the same coder pool across waves so cross-market comparisons stay consistent and defensible.
Medical & Healthcare
HCP and patient studies get coded by analysts fluent in therapeutic areas, drug classes, and clinical terminology — with HIPAA-aligned handling from upload through delivery.
Political & Media
Polling, message testing, and content research all need fast, nuanced coding. Our team handles overnight turnarounds on political tracking and entertainment beta tests without sacrificing granularity.
Image & Video Coding
Respondent-submitted photos and short videos get identified, tagged, and coded to your frame — so visual diary studies, shelf checks, and UGC research feed your analysis the same way text does.
IDI & IVR Audio
In-depth interviews and IVR recordings get transcribed and coded in one pass — one vendor, one chain of custody, one invoice from raw audio to analysis-ready file.