Five hidden reasons customers don’t like market research and what to do about it

There are five reasons why customers don’t like market research. Organisations that understand the issues and change the way they think about research can transform the customers’ experience of them. Here’s how:

1. Customers expect you to know why they buy and have little interest in telling you when things are going well. Why should they?

If you want to know, watching, listening, and responding to them on an ongoing basis is what customer centric businesses do. Asking is perfectly legitimate but evaluate responses with all the other behavioural data not on its own.

2. Organisations which hire research agencies to ask on their behalf are in effect already admitting to customers that they aren’t listening. Which doesn’t put them in a good light at all.

Framing the conversation as a customer service call or on behalf of an individual  they encountered or outlet for example (even if performed by an agency) brings the research closer to the customer. But making  ‘understanding the customer’ part of your sales or customer services or operations process  demonstrates a strategic commitment not a tactical decision.

3. The timing of the ‘asking’ invariably interrupts the customer (being stopped on the street, cold phone calls, even paper forms put in front of customers) forcing them to stop doing something in order to take part. Not only that but the interruption rarely happens at the same time as the customer was either thinking about or experiencing the service.  So not only are they irritated but they’re also not in the right frame of mind.

The best time to evaluate a customer’s feelings is when they are thinking about the service or just before and after they experience it.

4. Quantitative questions get framed in research speak (“how satisfied ..”, “how likely..” etc) which forces customers to articulate responses which feel unnatural.They also rarely ask questions that the customer wants to answer.

Research needs to be more of a conversation, that allows the customer to speak about the things that are important to them in relation to the service you provide. Frame the purpose of the conversation and let them speak

5. And finally, because they have had prior experience of being researched in this way, they perceive no benefit to them for taking part.

Customers love being consulted if they feel they will be listened and if either they, or others in society, will benefit. Help them understand what’s in it for them and make sure they experience what you promise.

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