For years, customer research felt like something I heard about but never truly understood.
It always seemed like someone else’s job. Something that product teams or agencies handled with expensive tools and long timelines. And when I did get my hands on a customer survey or user feedback spreadsheet, I wasn’t sure what to do with it. I would read the quotes, maybe highlight a few lines, and then nothing changed.
Even though I worked in marketing and had to drive conversions, I wasn’t connecting the dots. I didn’t see how to go from a customer comment to a better page or a higher-performing campaign. So I stuck with what I did understand: traffic numbers, bounce rates, keyword data.
And I think a lot of marketers do the same. We know customer research matters, but it feels hard to get and even harder to use. So we lean on the metrics that are easy to access and easy to explain, even if they rarely give us real answers.
That worked. Sort of. But it always felt like I was guessing.
That changed once I started using customer research the right way. It became my secret weapon. The thing that consistently improved my work and helped me launch campaigns that actually performed.
Now it’s my favorite part of marketing.
I stopped chasing more data and started chasing better answers
Like a lot of marketers, I used to chase analytics. I would run A/B tests, make layout changes, rewrite headlines, and tweak button copy. Always looking for the one adjustment that would move the needle.
And sometimes it did. But more often, nothing changed.
I thought I needed more tests, more data, and more iterations. What I really needed was better insights. Not from tools. From people.
That shift started with simple questions. I asked real customers things like:
- What almost stopped you from signing up?
- What were you hoping to find here?
- What convinced you to give this a try?
These weren’t long interviews or detailed surveys. Just a few focused, open-ended questions that helped me understand the moment someone made a decision.
Suddenly, I wasn’t just adjusting copy. I was reshaping the offer. Clarifying the value prop. Addressing real concerns before they could become objections. I realized how often I had been trying to fix symptoms without ever understanding the root cause.
Most marketers rely too heavily on closed-ended questions
Once I saw how valuable customer input could be, I started looking for ways to collect more of it. Polls, surveys, post-purchase forms, interviews. I was excited. But early on, I made a common mistake.
I asked the wrong kind of questions.
Closed-ended questions are tempting. They’re easy to set up. They give you tidy charts and clean data exports. They help you feel like you’re measuring something. But they rarely tell you anything you don’t already know.
They confirm assumptions. They don’t challenge them. And when you’re trying to understand human behavior, confirmation isn’t enough. You need to learn what you missed.
I still use closed-ended questions, but only for specific use cases:
- Benchmarking sentiment across audiences
- Comparing behavior across devices (mobile vs. desktop)
- Measuring change over time after a product update
If I want clarity at scale, they help. But when I want to understand, I rely on open-ended questions. That’s where the real insight lives.
Why open-ended questions are harder, but more valuable
OWhy open-ended questions are harder, but more valuable
Open-ended questions are messy. They take longer to review. They don’t fit into dashboards. They often don’t give you a tidy, statistically significant result.
But they give you useful ones.
They help you find the words people actually use. They uncover what almost made someone leave. They surface priorities you weren’t even thinking about.
Here are a few principles I follow when writing them:
- Avoid “why” and “was” to reduce defensiveness and rationalization
- Start with “what,” “how,” “when,” or “which”
- Force some cognitive effort, like “What are the top three reasons you chose us?”
- Let people explain themselves fully
- Add a final open text box, even after a multiple choice question, to capture unexpected input
Yes, this creates more work. You have to process the data. You have to code it. But if you’re trying to improve conversion, refine messaging, or deeply understand a segment, this is the only way to get there.
Learning to ask better questions changed how I approach everything
This shift didn’t happen in a vacuum. A lot of it came from working closely with product marketing teams.
Product marketers ask smarter questions than most of us in growth or demand gen. They’re not thinking about hooks or button color. They’re thinking about value perception, buying criteria, and competitive positioning.
And they taught me to think the same way.
I started asking:
- What job is this product being hired to do?
- What are customers comparing it against?
- What do they need to hear to feel confident?
I also started listening to sales calls. Not just occasionally, but often. Sales is where objections show up unfiltered. You’ll hear concerns customers won’t admit in a survey. You’ll learn how trust is built, and how it breaks.
The more I did this, the more I shaped my work around customer language. Not internal positioning. Not industry jargon. Real words, real priorities, real motivation.
Start with first-time buyers
If you only survey one group, make it the people who just converted.
They’re closest to the decision. They still remember what they were thinking. Their motivation is fresh. Their anxieties are recent.
And if you ask the right questions, they’ll tell you:
- What mattered most when they made their decision
- What almost stopped them
- What competitors they considered
- How they’d describe your brand or product
I’ve used these insights to rewrite entire landing pages, shape onboarding sequences, and rework nurture email flows. All from a handful of well-written survey questions.
You don’t need thousands of responses. If you’re in a niche, even 75 to 100 is enough. The key is to segment responses and code them properly.
The real value comes from how people say things. Not just what they chose in a multiple-choice field, but the exact phrasing they use when describing your product or their concerns. That language is what makes your copy resonate.
What’s holding people back? Just ask.
AnAnother game-changer was learning how to use on-site intercept polls. These aren’t long surveys. They’re short, strategic prompts triggered at the right moment.
For example:
- After a few seconds on a pricing page: “Is anything holding you back from signing up?”
- When someone moves their mouse to close the tab: “What’s missing from this page?”
- Immediately after a form submit: “What almost stopped you from signing up today?”
Tools like Hotjar or Usabilla make these easy to set up. You can get real responses within hours. Even a one percent response rate adds up quickly with enough traffic.
At one company I worked with, we learned that people hesitated to use our quote tool because they didn’t want to talk to a sales rep. So we tested a simple line below the CTA: “No phone call required unless you want one.”
That tiny message led to a measurable lift in conversions. Because we weren’t solving for friction. We were solving for uncertainty.
And that insight would’ve never come from a heatmap or analytics tool.
Don’t collect responses. Process them.
Once the answers start rolling in, the real work begins.
I used to skim responses and pull out a few great quotes. But that only scratches the surface. Now I code everything.
That means reading each response, tagging it with a theme, and then looking for patterns. It’s slow at first. But the more you do it, the faster and sharper you get.
You’ll start to see which objections show up the most, which benefits people actually care about, and which features are being misunderstood. That’s where the strategy starts to take shape.
This is where a lot of marketers stop. They gather quotes. They never turn them into strategy.
But when you process responses into categories like motivations, objections, and language patterns, you can actually use what you learn. You can shape your messaging. You can prioritize experiments. You can give product and sales teams insights they didn’t have before.
Some tools help with this. UserLeap, Chattermill, even DIY setups using Typeform and Google Sheets. But early on, I recommend doing it manually. You’ll get closer to your customer. And that closeness pays off.
The question that keeps me honest
After every round of research, I ask myself one thing:
Will this change how we market, build, or sell the product?
If the answer is no, I probably didn’t go deep enough. Or I asked the wrong questions.
This question keeps me honest. It forces me to move past curiosity and get to utility. It makes the difference between interesting and actionable.
And it helps me get buy-in. When I show a sales team that customer research aligns with what they’re hearing on calls, I build trust. When product teams use my findings to adjust positioning or onboarding, I know we’re closing the gap between departments.
From guessing to confidence
Before I started using customer research, I relied on competitive analysis and keyword tools. I told myself I understood the audience. I looked at what other companies were doing. I assumed.
Now, I test less and win more.
I’m not guessing which value prop to lead with. I’m not wondering what my audience is afraid of. I’m not hoping the copy just works.
I know. Because I asked.
Customer research isn’t just a tactic. It’s a mindset. One that took me from chasing clicks to building trust. From testing everything to testing the right things. From observing metrics to understanding people.
And once you make that shift, you won’t want to go back.
