Sometimes you can analyse customer data beautifully and still be missing the thing that matters, because businesses aren’t just numbers.
A conversion change might coincide with a website change. A drop in repeat purchase might relate to a product issue.
Customers in one region might be behaving differently because of delivery.
An apparently brilliant acquisition source might have been influenced by something happening offline.
And sometimes the most useful information is sitting in someone’s head.
The founder knows customers keep mentioning something. (And sometimes, it’s just ONE customer that mentions something. Always do the digging if one customer mentions a pain point… you’ll often others feel the same and it can be a little gem to discover it).
Customer service might have spotted a recurring question.
The marketing team knows a campaign changed six months ago.
That’s why I like talking to people around the business before disappearing into analysis.
The numbers matter enormously, but so does the context around them – it’s the story we find in the data added to the wider context that gives us the ability to make great decisions.
