Customer research is a critical part of growth. However many teams and founders make big mistakes when they do their research. What are the mistakes you need to avoid?
In this episode of the InDemand podcast, Asia Orangio, founder of DemandMaven, highlights the most common mistakes in conducting customer research and gives examples of how to avoid them.
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TL;DL
1:03 - Mistake one, not setting clear goals for research. You'll always have a trigger that makes you decide to do the research, but you should also have a clear goal. For example, "I want to understand who churns and why"
6:03 - Mistake two, not interviewing the right people. When you conduct your research, make sure that it's very clear who the target audiences are going to be and that it aligns with your ultimate goals and hypothesis of the research.
10:58 - Mistake three, over-talking in interviews. Too much talking makes your research subjects want to agree. You might end up with a lot of camaraderie, but you'll probably not get the most valuable information.
14:05 - Mistake four, asking leading questions. Giving a hint of the answers you want to hear makes it more likely you'll hear that answer and not an answer that may surprise you and point to an issue you're not aware of.
21:48 - Mistake five, accepting vague answers. This is the one that founders are most susceptible to. For example, "What I liked about the product was that it was easy to use". An answer like that should be followed up on to find out specifically what they mean. Terms like: it was easier, it was faster, it was better, it was stressful, it was annoying, it was confusing, it was flexible, it was seamless are triggers where you should dig deeper.