6 Things That Make Customer Research Complex

Product Management isn't as simple as just talking to your customers.

The reason why "talking to customers" is emphasized in PM books & circles a lot these days is because it's often not done regularly enough.

It's the first thing that gets put on the backburner when daily operations, spec work & delivery woes become overwhelming & chaotic.

However, while talking to customers is necessary, it's not sufficient.

To think that customer research will help you solve real-world problems is grossly over-simplifying the steep challenge of building a world-class & scalable product.

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Product development certainly does start from creating empathy towards the end user.

However, here's where things become more complex:

• All users are not the same

When there are 5 different opinions on the same matter, who do you prioritize? You'll need a product strategy to target specific personas.

• If you ask leading questions to these customers, you will get biased/skewed answers that will likely derail you

Customer discovery is an art of itself.

Uncovering jobs-to-be-done? It takes practice and a commitment to detach oneself emotionally from a specific solution or idea.

• Let's say you identify & validate a user problem

Now, you need to translate that into a solution that balances feasibility, usability and value. And while doing that, you also have to somehow upend the competition to make your product experience more compelling than theirs.

• Working with designers & engineers to iterate on a solution requires extensive collaboration and an iterative mindset

You can't simply relay what the customer said. You need to apply filters & fine-tune the edges.

• Rolling out a product is a different beast altogether

From creating buzz to explaining benefits to stitching onboarding sequences, the product manager has to ensure they work with marketers & growth teams to select messages that resonate.

• Then, if what customers are saying don't reconcile with product usage and traction numbers, then digging into that discrepancy needs a creative approach as well

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To sum up, taking out time to talk to customers (and churned users, prospects etc.) is an essential activity that a PM must carry out. And yes, understanding the problem clearly does set you up for later success.

However, it's only part of the job.

What comes after customer discovery is equally taxing & complex.

A PM is ultimately measured on their ability to timely ship a product that solves a problem at scale.

Don't just talk. Walk the talk.