When your marketing plan needs fresh customer insight
Customer insight is most useful when it helps the business make a decision it cannot make confidently from current evidence. Before commissioning broad research, identify the uncertainty. You may need to understand why customers choose, what prevents a purchase or how a buying process has changed.
Editorial responsibility: Nardus Oelofse, Chief Consultant.
By Chase & Marshal
Notice when the existing explanation stops fitting
Look for patterns the team cannot explain convincingly: suitable enquiries that fail to progress, new objections, changed buying times or customers choosing an alternative for unexpected reasons. Compare these signals with the assumptions behind your marketing plan.
A single lost sale does not establish a market shift. Look across several cases and ask whether the current explanation still holds. Separate a real change in customer needs from problems in targeting, pricing, service delivery or follow-up.
Turn the uncertainty into a research question
A useful question is specific enough to influence action. What information does a buying group need before approving this service? Why do first-time customers choose a smaller package? What makes an existing customer consider another provider?
In an illustrative supplier, salespeople may believe price is the main barrier, while customers may be uncertain about delivery reliability. Research should examine the actual decision and alternatives. Asking people generally whether they like the brand would leave the commercial question unresolved.
Listen beyond the easiest customers to reach
Include recent buyers, suitable non-buyers and customers whose relationship has changed where you can do so appropriately. Ask about specific decisions, what happened and which trade-offs mattered. Give people room to explain in their own terms.
Keep a distinction between what a person says, what the business observes and the interpretation you draw. A few conversations can reveal useful themes, but they do not automatically represent the whole market. Use the findings to sharpen questions and decide whether broader evidence is required.
Apply the insight to a real choice
Translate findings into changes the business can assess. These might involve the offer, proof, sales materials, channel selection or the buying journey. Prioritise the change with the clearest connection to the original decision.
Record the evidence and what remains uncertain. Then observe whether the revised approach improves the relevant customer behaviour. Research earns its place when it changes a decision or prevents a weak assumption from becoming an expensive commitment. Keeping that link visible makes future research more focused and useful.
Questions answered
How many interviews do we need?
The answer depends on the decision, the diversity of customers and the evidence already available. Define what you need to learn first, then choose a method and sample appropriate to that question rather than adopting a universal number.
Related
Sources
Sources supporting the factual statements in this article. Findings should be read within their stated dates, geography and scope.
- The impediments to initiating planning - Research Explorer The University of Manchester. research.manchester.ac.uk. Publication date not supplied.
- Avoiding digital marketing analytics myopia: revisiting the customer decision journey as a strategic marketing framework - PMC Lock. pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov. Publication date not supplied.
Resolve the customer question holding you back
Tell us which customer behaviour your team is struggling to explain. We can help frame the question and turn useful evidence into a clearer marketing decision.
