3 Reasons to Invest in Customer Research Right Now
In these volatile times, do you know what to invest in? The future is so uncertain. Customer research is the best place to start, and here’s why:
Customer research uncovers opportunities to differentiate and compete - and it’s an all-new race.
To some extent, the disruptive change of 2020 has been an equalizer. Comparative advantages have shifted, and the status quo has become more fluid. Now is the time when companies with deeper insights can get ahead. The potential value for customer research to uncover opportunities to leapfrog the competition is at an all-time high.
Customer research is not a luxury reserved for rich companies - it’s risk mitigation for companies that can’t afford to make expensive mistakes.
Aside from a few lucky categories, business is down. Companies have less money to spend, and need to make careful choices. At the same time, it’s easier to make mistakes, because so much has changed. Assumptions are particularly dangerous right now, as conventional wisdom and intuition fail to keep up with the pace of change.
Your existing customer research is out of date - for good.
Sad but true. It has become clear that we are not going back to the old normal. There will be permanent effects from the ways we have adapted to the pandemic. This means your old research - anything before COVID took over - is probably missing something. And if you’re on a roadmap from a year or more ago, you need to reassess the insights it was based on. Some of your old premises may now be false.
It’s time to conduct new customer research - it can be done in a variety of ways, to meet the constraints of any budget and timeframe. Start by discussing your goals and assessing your situation to formulate a learning agenda and research approach.
