Customer Research
Categories
Professional
Startup
Level
Simple

Customer research plays a large role in product development, customer strategies, and marketing activity. Digging deep into customer feedback can keep your company connected to your customers, ensuring they find your products valuable to their own business. All the insights and themes gathered from customer interviews can strongly inform further business decisions such as the marketing strategies or further product and feature development. This is beneficial for clients and prospects alike.

Understanding your customers is crucial for any business, and customer research is an essential tool for doing so. By gathering feedback and insights from your customers, you can stay connected to their needs and desires, which will help ensure that your products and services are valuable and relevant to them. Customer research can inform a wide range of business decisions, from product development and marketing strategies to customer acquisition and retention efforts. By taking the time to listen to your customers, you can gain valuable insights that will help you better serve their needs and build long-term relationships. Additionally, this type of research can be helpful for both current clients and potential prospects, as it helps to ensure that you are meeting the needs and expectations of your target audience. Overall, customer research is a powerful tool that can help businesses stay competitive, grow, and succeed in today’s fast-paced and constantly evolving market.

Interviews

This table serves as an overview of all interviews conducted. It stores all details pertaining to the interview including the source being interviewed, the organization represented, and product usage. It contains all the data required to begin researching into customers and their thoughts, concerns, and feedback about products and services your company offers.

Fields

  • ID. The interview’s unique identifier.
  • Date and time. The interview’s date and time.
  • Method. A single select field that indicates the method the interview was conducted.
  • Source interviewed. This field links to the Sources table to display the name of the source interviewed.
  • Representing organization. This field looks to the Organizations table to display the name of the organization the Source interviewed is representing.
  • Role. This table peeks at the Sources table to identify the role of the Source interviewed.
  • Summary. A brief summary of the interview.
  • Outcome. The interview’s outcome. Did the prospect become a customer? Are they still on the fence? Was a customer lost?
  • Related insights. This field links to the Insights table to display the insight IDs related to the interview.
  • Previous product used. This field links to the Products table to display the product the Source interviewed was previously using.
  • Winning product. This field also links to the Products table to display the product that the Source interviewed is currently using.
  • Product changed. This formula field depicts whether the client changed products with a green check mark to indicate “yes” and a red x to indicate “no”.
  • Currently using our product. This formula field identifies whether the Winning product is a product owned by your company.
  • Transcript. The interview’s transcript.

Views

  • All interviews. Displays all interviews sorted in chronological order of Date and time.
  • By method. Displays all interviews stacked by Method in a kanban view.
  • By outcome. Displays all interviews stacked by Outcome in a kanban view.
  • New interview. Displays a shareable form used to submit a new interview.

Insights

Use this table to extract all customer feedback and suggestions. The insights within this table can help you understand your customers needs and preferences on a deeper level. Insights can be used downstream to feed further product development.

Fields

  • ID. The insight’s unique identifier.
  • Significance. The insight’s significance. Was the insight the primary factor that led the client to switch products or was it just a contributing factor?
  • Sentiment. The insight’s overall sentiment.
  • Source interview. This field looks to the Interviews table to identify the unique ID of the interview the insight is extracted from.
  • Related product. This field looks to the Products table to identify which product the insight is about.
  • Quotes. Any relevant quotes from the transcript pertaining to the insight.
  • Related themes. This field looks to the Themes table to highlight any applicable themes related to the insight.
  • Related tags. This field pulls any noted key words from the Tags table.
  • Our product. A boolean field that depicts whether the insight is referring to a product owned by your company. If there is an x, it means the insight is referring to a different company’s product, possibly a competitor.
  • Company owned true/false. This field is hidden in all views and is solely used for calculations.

Views

  • All insights. Displays all insights sorted in increasing numerical order of insight ID.
  • Our product insights. Displays only insights about the your company’s products sorted in increasing numerical order of insight ID.
  • Competing product insights. Displays insights about products not owned by your company sorted in increasing numerical order of ID.
  • By significance. Displays all insights about your company’s products stacked by Significance in the form of a kanban view.
  • By sentiment. Displays all insights about your company’s products stacked by Sentiment in the form of a kanban view.
  • New insight. Displays a shareable form used to extract insights from interviews to be used for further customer research.

Products

Many companies offer a range of products or services, and it can be useful to have a way to track and compare these offerings. This table holds information about both in-house products and comparable products offered by competitors. By using this table, you can quickly identify what your clients like about your company’s products, as well as what sources appreciate about competitor products that you may want to improve upon. This information can be valuable for product development and marketing efforts.

Fields

  • Name. The product’s name.
  • Type. The product type.
  • Category. The product category.
  • Owned by. A drop down with various competitors or your company’s name.
  • Description. A brief description of the product.
  • Winning product interviews. This field looks to the Interviews table to identify the interviews that contained this product as the winning product the customer ultimately went with.
  • Price. The general price rated on a scale of $ - $$$.
  • Winning product frequency. The amount of times the product was the winning pick based on the Interviews.
  • Related insights. This field pulls the unique insight ID from the Insights table to link the insights with the products.
  • Number of insights. The number of insights related to the product.

Views

  • All products. Displays all products sorted in alphabetical order. Products owned by your company are highlighted by a light green color.
  • Most expensive. Displays all products that are rated as most expensive sorted in alphabetical order. This can be a rapid way to identify what clients valued most about the most expensive products.
  • Most frequently used. Displays products that are used most frequently sorted in alphabetical order.
  • Contains most insights. Displays products that contain the highest number of insights sorted in alphabetical order.
  • By type. Displays all products stacked by Type in the form of a kanban view.
  • By category. Displays all products stacked by Category in the form of a kanban view.
  • By owner. Displays all products stacked by the owner of the product in the form of a kanban view.

Sources

An employee’s role or title within a company can often be a significant factor in the decision to adopt a new product. This table serves as a record of all sources interviewed at any point in time, including their contact information and the company they represent. It’s useful for tracking and organizing information about potential customers.

Fields

  • Name. The source’s name.
  • Status. The source’s status
  • Date of birth. The source’s date of birth.
  • Phone number. The source’s phone number.
  • Email. The source’s email.
  • Self-identified gender. The source’s gender.
  • Representing. The name of the organization the source represents pulled from the Organizations table.
  • Role. The source’s role.
  • Related interviews. The unique interview ID pulled from the Interviews table for all interviews the source was part of.

Views

  • All sources. Displays all sources sorted in alphabetical order of Name.
  • By role. Displays all sources stacked by Role in the form of a kanban view.
  • New source. Displays a shareable form used to add new sources to the list.

Organizations

The importance of feedback depends on the source. Use this table to identify which organizations are part of your target customer group. Determine if your products are primarily intended for small businesses or large corporations. Consider whether it would be more effective to market your products to companies with high revenue or to those in specific industries. This information will allow you to tailor your marketing efforts and reach your intended audience more effectively.

Fields

  • Name. The organization’s name.
  • Logo. The organization’s logo.
  • Industry. The organization’s industry.
  • Description. A brief description of the organization.
  • Number of employees. The organization’s size measured in estimated number of employees.
  • Annual revenue. The organization’s estimated annual revenue.
  • Related interviews. This field looks to the Interviews table to pull in the interviews of sources representing the organization.
  • Representatives. This field links to the Sources table to identify employees that represent the company.

Views

  • All organizations. Displays all organizations sorted in alphabetical order.
  • High revenue. Displays organizations with an Annual revenue above 5,000,000 sorted by descending revenue.
  • Large organizations. Displays organizations that have more than 200 employees sorted in ascending order.
  • Organizations gallery. Displays all organizations in form of a gallery sorted in alphabetical order.
  • By industry. Displays all organizations stacked by Industry in the form of a kanban view.
  • New organization. Displays a shareable form used to add a new organization to the roster.

Themes

By analyzing the insights gathered from customer research, it is possible to identify common themes and patterns. For example, if many customers mention that a product is too expensive or that a particularly impressive product is not being adequately marketed, this information can be used to make changes such as lowering costs or adjusting the marketing strategy. Identifying common themes in customer feedback can help to provide a broader overview of customer sentiment and can inform business decisions. These insights can be valuable for improving products, services, and marketing efforts.

Fields

  • Name. The theme name.
  • Type. The theme type.
  • Referenced insights. This field is linked to the Insights table to display any insights that use any of the themes.
  • Frequency with our products. This formula field counts how many times this themes has come up with your company products.
  • Frequency. This field is solely used for calculations and will be hidden for all views.

Views

  • All themes. Displays all themes sorted by highest frequency first, then alphabetical order.
  • By type. Displays all themes stacked by Type in the form of a kanban view.
  • New themes. Displays a shareable form used to add a new theme to the list.

Tags

Tags and keywords are always helpful when querying the data. Similar concepts further categorize the insights and break them down for further consumption.

Fields

  • Name. The tag’s name.
  • Functional area. The tag’s functional area.
  • Related insights. This field looks to the Insights table to display insights with this tag.
  • Frequency. This field calculates the number of insights using the tag.

Views

  • All tags. Displays all tags sorted in alphabetical order first, then by highest frequency.
  • Most common. Displays tags used with the highest number of insights sorted from highest Frequency to lowest, then in alphabetic order.
  • By functional area. Displays all tags stacked by Functional area in the form of a kanban view.
  • New tag. Displays a shareable form used to add a new tag to the list.