I’m of course a big believer in using data to understand a business, but there are questions it can’t answer on its own.
Say customers who order samples are considerably more likely to buy. That’s great – but why?
Maybe it’s that receiving the sample builds their confidence in the business. Or they were more serious about buying in the first place. They might be comparing you with competitors. Or something happens in the follow-up journey after ordering the samples that makes the difference.
The data can tell us that the relationship exists. It can’t necessarily tell us why a customer has done that particular behaviour (in this example, going on to buy after ordering samples).
That’s why it’s hugely valuable to talk to your customers. Not as a substitute for looking at the data, but alongside it.
I’ve recently done this on a project where the customer conversations added context to patterns we’d found in the data. Things that looked one way in the numbers made much more sense once I heard how customers had actually made their decisions. (And customers open up far more in a conversation than they ever would in a written survey).
We need to know what your customers do, and also why they’re doing it – knowing both of these things leads to really great decisions.
