Facing up to the customer

One of the things that market researchers do is help people at the companies they work for meet with their customers. I wonder if this isn't in fact one of the most important things that researchers do? Could it be the basis of a kind of research that add real 'thick' value?

I'm reading a book called Made to Stick about how different messages can be made more effective or 'sticky'. One element that they identify as being important is that a message is 'concrete' - rooted in real stuff and not abstract concepts.

An idea that is truly concrete has 'hooks'. Like velcro, it is able to catch onto pre-existing 'hoops' in our mind, stuff that we already know about and can relate to.

One story they tell is of a new brand manager at an American food corporation. When she started in the role she was given a folder of reports and statistics on her supposed customer all of which left her feeling none the wiser about they were actually like. Then her company arranged for her to actually spend a few days in the homes of some of the people who actually bought and used her product. That experience was so real that it led her to several insights about how to improve the brand offer and still informs how she thinks about her customer.

It's amazing how distant many people that work in big companies are from the customer they're trying to reach. Given this it's perhaps unsurprising that just a few days spent face-to-face - immersed in people's real lives, observing how they actually use the product, hearing their views directly - could form a more useful and lasting impression than any amount of second hand reports or statistics.

What's perhaps even more impactful about this approach though is that it humanises the customer, changing them from a statistic to a real life person and helping to build empathy. A company of employees who have looked into the eyes of the people they are selling to, encountered them in their own home, witnessed them playing with their children, is a company that is less likely to take cynical decisions.

In other words, meeting the customer shouldn't just about developing strategy. It's should be about creating human connections and situating what a customer does in a more social - and more empathic - setting.