Virtually all companies say that the customer is at the heart of their business.
It sounds simple enough, right? To see your offering from the customer’s point of view.
And of course, various types of market research are conducted as input.
But here’s the crucial question:
Does what we gather from these surveys truly reflect the customer’s real perspective?
Advertising legend David Ogilvy stated that “The trouble with market research is that people don’t think what they feel, they don’t say what they think, and they don’t do what they say.”
We know that we feel something, but putting words to the why is difficult. This applies to all of us.
Therefore, the answers in these surveys are often based on the most obvious things: faster, simpler, cheaper, better etc.
But when it comes down to it – the decision – these factors rarely weigh as heavily as the answers suggested.
Why this discrepancy?
Well, because context and circumstances play an enormous role in how we humans perceive and value things.
We simply cannot disconnect from them when making a decision or reflecting on an experience.
Richard Thaler brilliantly illustrates this in his book “Nudge”. A Canadian example showed how the wording of the question drastically affected the answers.
Half of the participants were asked, “Are you unhappy?”.
Among them, a full 375% more answered yes compared to the group that was asked, “Are you happy?”.
Don’t get me wrong, market research is valuable!
But the results should be interpreted with caution.
They rarely provide the complete truth about that elusive customer perspective.
Here you can read about what your customers are actually paying for.
