One of the more interesting blog posts I have read recently is The Secret to Meaningful Customer Relationships, written by Roger Martin for the Harvard Business Review. In this article , Martin makes a plea for stressing qualitative customer analysis over the quantitative type of research for which business is typically known.
Martin notes that, “if our understanding of customers is based entirely on quantitative analysis, we will have a shallow rather than deep relationship with them.”
He goes on:
This runs against the prevailing view of customer understanding. Quantitative customer analysis with a large statistically significant sample and multiple choice questions that enable quantitative analysis of the answers is deemed ‘rigorous’. Qualitative customer research that uses small samples and conversational and/or observational approaches is considered by many to be lax and/or shoddy — and certainly unscientific.
The former represents an interesting definition of rigor. It is rigorous from a numerical statistical perspective. But note what we have to give up in order to acquire this ‘rigor’. It means that our words have to be used, not the respondents’ words.
In other words, with quantitative customer analysis, WE frame the questions in our own terms, without thinking about how our customers think and feel. We need to hear it in their own words. This is where Social Media can be an extremely valuable tool. By allowing our customers to act and react, unfiltered, in their own words, we get a true reading of where we stand in their eyes.
This doesn’t mean that numbers and quantitative research aren’t important. But they only give you part of the picture. A very skewed part.
As Martin says, “if you want a deep relationship with your customers, don’t spend your time talking to them through the vehicle of quantitative research tools.”
So step away from the numbers and invest in relationships instead.
