Customer research

What customer research is for

Customer research has one practical goal: to learn why people buy from you in words you can reuse. Not in marketing language, but the way a customer would explain it to a friend. Those words are what make an ad feel relevant, a headline feel familiar and a quote feel safe to accept.

Most small businesses skip this step because they think they already know the answer. Usually they know the product very well and the buying decision much less. The owner sees the job; the customer remembers the panic when the water heater died on a Sunday, the three companies that never called back, and the one that sent a text within ten minutes.

How the interviews work

I talk to five to eight recent customers on short phone or Zoom calls. You send the invitation, which I draft, and the calls are scheduled at times that suit them, across any US time zone. I ask open questions in a fixed order:

1. What was going on when you started looking?
2. Where did you look first, and who else did you consider?
3. What almost made you choose someone else?
4. What made you decide?
5. How would you describe us to a friend?

I record notes word for word where I can, because the exact phrasing is the valuable part. Where possible I also speak to one or two people who asked for a quote and went elsewhere. They are harder to reach, but one honest "your price was fine, you just took three days to reply" is worth a lot.

The data side

Interviews explain the why; data shows the how many. I look at your sales history and CRM: which services bring the most profit, which neighborhoods or zip codes buy, how long it takes from inquiry to payment, how many people return. Then I check search demand: what people type into Google, how it changes with the seasons, and which phrases competitors ignore. Reviews close the loop, yours and your competitors', on Google, Yelp and the directories in your trade.

What you get

A short summary of who buys and why: the trigger that starts the search, the doubts that slow it down, the deciding factor and the phrases customers use. It flows directly into buyer personas, the value proposition and the copy for your website and ads. As part of the marketing strategy, it also shapes which channels get budget.

Mistakes that skew the results

• Interviewing only friends and loyal regulars, who tell you what you want to hear.
• Asking leading questions such as "was our quality the reason you chose us?"
• Letting the owner run the call. Customers are more candid with an outsider.
• Collecting answers and then writing the ads the old way anyway.

Customers who speak more than one language

The US has large communities that search and buy in a language other than English. If your customers are Polish, Russian or Ukrainian speakers, in Chicago, New York, New Jersey or elsewhere, I can run the interviews in their language and catch the nuances that translated surveys miss. My article on marketing an immigrant-owned business covers this in more depth. Spanish-language research is outside my work.

How long it takes on your side

Your time commitment is small: a list of recent customers who agreed to be contacted, a sentence or two on each, and access to your sales data or CRM export. I handle scheduling, the calls and the notes. If customers are spread across states, I book them in their own time zone.

Price

Customer research is included in the $1,900 audit and strategy. If you would rather do the interviews yourself, a consultation at $65 an hour gets you a question list and help reading the answers.