To say Tim Hoskins is excited about Quester’s new marketing software — which can basically take the place of a human being in front of a focus group — is something like saying the Greater Des Moines Partnership folks get excited when Greater Des Moines tops another “best city” list.

He can hardly contain himself.

The personable 30-year-old says marketing firms became good at telling us what is going on. He’s focused on the next level. “We identify the ‘why,’ Hoskins said. “Why are consumers behaving the way they are?”

He said the answer to that question can make billions for some of Quester’s  prominent client companies. Quester surveys the companies’ customers to find out what they want, how they will get it, and what they will do once they have found it. And, importantly, why the customers behave the way they do. (The company declined to identify its clients.)

Drake University sociology professor Charles Cleveland founded Quester in 1973. The business specialized in one-on-one qualitative market research in a call-center style for its clients. Cleveland trained his callers in a regimented way to interview respondents. Now, the company focuses on online interviews, driven by software with artificial intelligence.

We sat down with Hoskins, who became president of the 22-employee company in May 2014. He joined the company in 2011 as vice president of client relations. 

What are you doing that is different?
In the 1970s, the interviews were face-to-face. Now, all the interviewing is done by software. We built artificial intelligence to conduct them. The people are typing on a computer. We have started doing voice recognition on a mobile app. The AI (artificial intelligence) is identifying the information and developing follow-up questions.

How does that work?
If I said I didn’t like the product, the AI will ask why. This is important for product testing. You never know what the consumer is going to say. The AI has phrase recognition, and it applies an algorithm. We have identified another way to identify key ideas.
We are leveraging linguistics still, but there is a completely different interaction of things. We are seeing it with passive data collection that occurs 24/7.

Do you work long hours?
(Laughs.) 

Where do you do business? 
We conduct research globally — in China, India, Europe, Mexico and the United States.

What is the next big thing?
Companies are coming to us on a day-to-day basis with huge business objectives. The next big thing for Quester … there is passive data collection occurring on a continuous basis. Our cellphones are tracking everything. Google has already been able to track everything we do online. At some point, as consumers, if the world continues to shift, consumers are going to be OK with all of this information being known. Who would have ever thought that would be the case? If all of that information is being collected, then how does Quester aggregate that information but then be able to tell people why something has happened? The “why” in our world moving forward is going to be the most important thing for businesses. It is not going to be the “what.” It is not going to be the “how.”

What do you do in the community? 
I am a class member in the Greater Des Moines Leadership Institute class of 2015. Also, I am working on employment and training opportunities for Central Iowa Shelter Services residents.

What else keeps you busy? 
I’m a board member for the Marketing Research Association and this year was named Volunteer of the Year. I also am alumni adviser for Pi Kappa Phi at Iowa State University.