A scheduled video call between you and a participant. The most depth available, and the most of your time.
When to use one
When the conversation needs a person: sensitive subjects, senior participants, complicated situations, or anything where you'll want to abandon your guide and follow something unexpected.
If you mainly need depth at volume, an AI interview covers that without the scheduling.
Setting up
Define who you need in your screener. For professional audiences our recruitment team sources them for you.
Connect your calendar before you launch. Matched participants then book themselves into slots you're genuinely free for, which removes almost all of the scheduling back-and-forth. Time zones are handled for you.
Set your availability window: when bookings can start, and whether they run until the study completes or stop on a date you choose.
Write a short guide: three to five topics with a few open questions each. It's a reference for you during the call, not a script.
Sharing the load across your team
Working alone? You set your availability and every session comes to you. Nothing else to think about.
Have a team? Add colleagues as moderators. Each connects their own calendar and keeps their own availability, either the hours on their profile or hours set specifically for this study.
With more than one moderator, you choose how sessions are allocated:
Automatic: spreads them across whoever is available.
Manual: you assign each one yourself.
You'll also see a combined view of when the team is collectively free, which is the quickest way to spot thin coverage before you launch. You can pause a moderator without removing them (useful for holidays).
Quiet observers. A colleague can be added as a hidden moderator, invisible to the participant, but able to join and watch. Good for a stakeholder who should see the research without becoming part of the conversation. This works on CleverX video.
Booking rules
Two settings protect your calendar:
Minimum notice: how much warning you need before a session (one hour to three days). The default is one hour, which is usually too little if you like to prepare.
Maximum sessions per day: caps how many you can be booked into. Unlimited by default, but interviewing is tiring and quality drops, so three or four is a sensible ceiling.
With a team, these apply to each moderator individually. You can preview the booking page participants will see before you launch.
Running the call
Calls run on CleverX video by default. You can use Google Meet, Microsoft Teams or Zoom instead if your team prefers.
Recording is usually on so you can revisit what was said rather than taking notes while trying to listen. Participants are told before they join. Colleagues can watch quietly without being part of the conversation, a good way to get stakeholders close to customers without a crowded call.
Getting a good interview
Start wider than your topic. A couple of minutes on their role and their week gets people talking and gives you context.
Ask for stories, not opinions. "Walk me through the last time that happened" beats "what do you think of it."
Let silence sit. The pause after someone finishes is often where the real answer arrives. Count to three before filling it.
Follow the surprise. If someone says something unexpected, abandon your guide and chase it. That's the entire reason you're on the call rather than running a survey.
After the call
Sessions are transcribed and summarised, with themes and quotes pulled out.
Payment for moderated interviews approves automatically 48 hours after the call ends, so there's nothing you need to do for the participant to be paid.
If someone doesn't show
It happens. Tell us and we'll arrange a replacement.