by Duncan Watts
Business Consultant, 20/20 Group, Cairns

Most of us involved in businesses are aware of the importance of customer research. We know it provides important information; we know it helps us make decisions; and we know we should be doing it.

And most of us do.

However, despite the best intentions, more often than not it is the execution of a customer research programme – often in the form of customer feedback forms – that is its undoing.

Executed correctly, the benefits of customer research are boundless. It can inform marketing strategies, identify problems before they reach a critical mass, establish benchmarks to monitor your business’s performance and establish what your customers want.

Poorly executed however, customer research can be time consuming for you and your customers, with few tangible benefits. Here are some tips to ensure your customer research programme rewards your time and effort.

1.    Ask fewer questions (but make them good ones!)

Respect your customers by placing a premium on their time. Step back and ask yourself what you’re aiming to find out, and focus on this.

Will asking how customers rate your staff’s “friendliness” on a scale of 1 to 10 really tell you anything that you, as a manager, won’t already know? Would you have employed an “unfriendly” person to begin with?

In terms of adding value to your marketing, maybe the only question you need to ask is “where are you from?” or “where are you staying in Port Douglas?” This might give an idea of where your next marketing dollars would be best spent.

2.    Ask everyone (or as many people as possible)

Tracking customer origin on your feedback form is a great idea, but what use is that information if only five per cent of customers fill it out?

Ask customers where they’re from at the time of booking or at the point of purchase. It takes you three seconds, and you aren’t taking much of their time either. Over the course of the year, this will provide a profile of your customers and potentially identify marketing opportunities.

3.    Track results over time

Whatever yardstick you decide is important for your business decision making, you’ll need to measure changes over time – otherwise why are you measuring it? So record a date alongside that data.

4.    Be critical and questioning

You know your business better than anyone, so probably have a feel for most issues before you formally research them. Be critical of your figures – they can sometimes be misleading. Question unusual trends, and try to explain them before you use the data to make a decision.

5.    Beware the sexy graph

For some reason, once you present figures graphically, everyone stops questioning them. A graph I once inherited showed an amazingly similar relationship between two sets of data, but it had been set up incorrectly, meaning the relationship between the figures didn’t actually exist. No one had thought to question it all that time… because it was a sexy graph!

Customer research is only one of a number of important forms of research you can undertake for your business. Along with competitor research and market research (including industry research, demographic research, community consultation and economic research), it can play an important role in business planning and decision making.

Recapping:

1.    Ask fewer questions (but make them good ones!)
2.    Ask everyone (or as many people as possible)
3.    Track results over time
4.    Be critical
5.    Beware the sexy graph