“We don’t need customer research; we already know our customers.”
“Research takes too long.”
“Is qualitative research even valuable enough?”
These objections to customer research are super common—every day, founders and teams use these excuses (and oh so many more) not to learn more from their customers.
Maybe you’re wrestling with these objections yourself or trying to move others past them to get internal buy-in for customer research. Either way, here’s the bottom line: There’s no better way to gain the intel you need to grow your SaaS and improve conversions than by getting inside your customers' heads.
In this episode of the Forget the Funnel podcast, Claire and Georgiana break down the four most common myths about customer research they’ve encountered. They talk through where they come from, how to get past them, and why foundational customer understanding is critical for every business decision you make.
Discussed
- The top four customer research objections.
- The importance of building a foundational customer understanding based on 10 to 12 conversations with recent, paying, and happy customers—and why you don’t need to spend endless months and tens of thousands of dollars on research.
- How do changes in your customers, market, product, and team make customer research all the more urgent?
Key moments
1:32 — Claire sets the stage for the episode by outlining the four most common objections to customer research.
3:18—Georgiana discusses the most common research objection: “We already know our customers.” Claire explains why founders often feel this way and the problem with leaning on early-stage intuition long-term.
6:22 — Georgiana speaks to the similar objection that customer success or product teams frequently research or interviews with customers and why this misses the forest for the trees.
10:42 — Claire shares the second most common customer research objection: “Research takes too much time.” Georgiana breaks down where this objection comes from. (Hint: It’s usually prior experiences with research projects on a massive scale.)
13:18 — Georgiana explains what it can look like to gain foundational customer understanding with 10 to 12 customer interviews, along with quicker wins like running a qualitative customer survey or adding a question to your sign-up form.
18:49 — Georgiana introduces the third objection, which shows up when people think 10 interviews couldn’t possibly be enough or want quantitative proof. Claire breaks down the context you need when running customer interviews and the importance of pattern saturation, which you can get from 10 to 12 interviews.
25:01 — The fourth and final objection comes when a product moves into a new market, and the team doesn’t think they can learn from their current customer base. Georgiana explains why this objection has become more common in recent years.
33:54 — The pair ends the episode by pointing to other episodes of the podcast and resources that explore these topics and objections more in-depth.