The Wrong Way to Interview Customers

Source: Kaizenco

Consultant Katelyn Bourgoin recently posted an insightful Twitter thread highlighting the five key mistakes that market researchers make when interviewing customers.  Here are her five common errors to avoid:

1. Asking people what they want:  Don't ask them what product or service they desire.  They typically won't be able to invent a new product for you.   Ask them instead about the pain points they are experiencing with existing products and services.  Dig deep to understand their frustrations and any workarounds they may currently employ.  Then build on that to develop a solution to the customers' problems.

2.  Asking people about future behavior:  Customers often cannot predict their future actions accurately.  Therefore, avoid asking them what they might do in the future. Focus on what they are doing currently.  

3. Relying too much on opinions:  Focus on actual behaviors rather than viewpoints.  Remember that people often don't do what they say they do.  They say one thing and do another in many instances.

4.  Talking to the wrong people:  You often get more valuable information from actual consumers rather than people who you think may use your product or service in the future.   Be careful about the conclusions you draw from people in your desired target market who may have not ever purchased your product or service (or even a competitor's product or service). 

5.  Talking to people at the wrong time:  Talking to people who may have purchased your product several years ago may be problematic.  Memories fade over time.  The best timing occurs when you interview people who have recently purchased from you or a rival, or perhaps even better, are currently in the midst of their research/purchasing/usage journey.  

Five Mistakes in Consumer Research

Here are five mistakes that companies make when they send people out into the field to research consumer behavior.

1.  Researchers ask leading questions, fishing for the answers that they wish to hear.

2.   Companies research their "typical" customer, but fail to look at non-typical users or folks who have rejected doing business with the company altogether.

3.  Researchers look for and collect data that will confirm what they already believe, and they dismiss or explain away disconfirming data.

4.  Researchers intervene to "educate" consumers on how to "properly" use their companies' products, rather than seeing "improper" use of a product as an unbelievably important piece of data. 

5.  Companies weigh surveys much more heavily than field observations, since they can quantify the data from survey responses (while field observations are written off as anecdotal evidence). 

Beyond Big Data

Here's a terrific short video from the University of Chicago's Booth School of Business.  The video explores the latest trends in consumer research.

More Honest Customer Responses on Surveys?

We always should worry that customer surveys will yield inaccurate results for a variety of reasons.  In many cases, people simply say one thing and do another; they don't behave in a manner consistent with their survey responses. 

According to Christopher Shea in the Wall Street Journal, researchers may have discovered a simply way to enhance the accuracy of responses.  He cites a study by researchers at the University of Michigan and the New School for Social Research.  They compared phone surveys with text-message-based polls.  They found that texting-based responses tended to be more candid.    In fact, they asked about somewhat sensitive topics such as drugs, religion, and sex.   People admitted to certain behaviors more openly via texting than by phone. 

Perhaps the results suggest that market researchers should try text-message-based questionnaires in lieu of the usual phone surveys.  They may discover how consumers actually behave, rather than just hearing a "sanitized" version via phone call. 

Lego Tries to Appeal to Girls

Business Week has a story this week about how Lego is trying to appeal more effectively to girls. I don't know if it will work, given the firm's historical image and positioning. However, I am very impressed with the research methodology that they employed before designing a new line of products specifically targeted at girls. Lego invested significant resources in anthropological research, sending researchers into homes to watch how girls play. They learned a great deal about how girls build, value beauty and color, and engage in role play. Here is one fascinating excerpt: Lego confirmed that girls favor role-play, but they also love to build—just not the same way as boys. Whereas boys tend to be “linear”—building rapidly, even against the clock, to finish a kit so it looks just like what’s on the box—girls prefer “stops along the way,” and to begin storytelling and rearranging. Lego has bagged the pieces in Lego Friends boxes so that girls can begin playing various scenarios without finishing the whole model. Lego Friends also introduces six new Lego colors—including Easter-egg-like shades of azure and lavender. (Bright pink was already in the Lego palette.)