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B2B Market Research Recruitment: Right People, Right Questions

Two crucial elements of any B2B market research project are:

Recruiting the right people, and
Asking them the right questions.

In this video, we’ll discuss the best ways to recruit the right participants for a B2B research study – and how to get the most valuable information from them.

Video Transcript:

Everyday life presents us with numerous examples of where you need to bring a few things together to make something awesome. For example, planes without engines – they don’t fly very far. Reese’s peanut butter cups –well you’re going to need peanut butter and chocolate to make one of those. And the atoms that make up the entire universe – for each atom, you’re going to need protons and neutrons and electrons.

So when it comes to B2B market research, what are those core elements? What are those core building blocks that you need to conduct a successful study? I would suggest that it’s two things, what I call right people and right questions. From a right people standpoint, what we’re talking about here is we’re talking about people that have the right background.

So they come from the right industry sector, they come from the right size company, they have experience with the right types of business problems that you want to investigate, and they maybe even have the right experience with certain technology stacks. But in this scenario, we also have to bring two things together.

In many cases in the market research industry, people turn to panel firms and expert networks to source these individuals, but that’s never going to be enough. You’re always going to have to layer on it another piece of the puzzle, much like that Reese’s Peanut butter cup I talked about earlier. And what that is, is a firm that has context.

More importantly, they have shared context with you. They have experience with your type of business. They understand the type of prospects and customers that you want to interact with. They understand the technology you sell and the type of products and services you go to market with. They might even have deep experience with the types of marketing and sales and product development strategies that you leverage.

And if you can marry a firm that has that context with an expert network or a panel firm that’s providing you, in essence, the raw material – now you’ve got a really good combination. And another way to think about this is, is just a trip to a grocery store. For example, you know, you can go to a Kroger or a Safeway or a Costco, basically kind of a big box grocery store, and they’ll present you with all kinds of options that you might want to consider.

This is somewhat akin to a panel firm. Lots of choices, not a lot of guidance from the panel firm or the grocer in this case as to what you’re going to put in your cart. And then you can take another step beyond that perhaps, and think about an expert network. When you think about an expert network, in the analogy of kind of grocery shopping, it’s somewhat akin to going to like a Trader Joe’s or a New Seasons or a Whole Foods.

Well, now maybe we’ve narrowed the pie somewhat. You know, our choices are now maybe more organic. They’re a little more focused. Maybe they’re more locally sourced, but we still have a fundamental problem. When we go down that aisle filled with 20 different types of almond milk, we’re the one that has to make that choice unless we have someone who can help us curate that.

Someone who’s akin to somewhat of a personal shopper of sorts so that we don’t have to think about all the different types of almond milk. The right one is just going to end up in our basket. And that’s what happens when you marry a market research firm who understands the context you live in as a B2B organization with that raw fuel that you get from a panel firm or an expert network.

And when you combine those, then you can get to that core goal of getting the right people in your study. And if you don’t have the right people, well then frankly, you’re just asking questions of the wrong people and what’s the point in that? The second thing is that point about right questions. So this also is an issue of shared context.

If you don’t have enough shared context with the participants of the study in this case, you’re never going to be able to ask deep enough questions. And deep questions are what leads to great insights. An example here from everyday life is when you think about your job, if a child asks you about your job, you’re going to tend to kind of take a slightly broader approach to answering a child’s question about your job. You’re going to use broad based analogies. You’re not going to get into the nitty gritty of the technical and business problems that you face every day. In essence, you’re going to dumb it down a little bit, and that’s not a bad thing because you want that child in that case to understand, at least at a rudimentary level, what your day has been like.

But how does that change when you talk to a peer, when you talk to somebody who has that shared context? Well, now you’re going to get into all this deep detail about the technical challenges maybe you faced in implementing a solution or the business problems you surmounted. You know, you get a lot more depth and context, and the only way to elicit that kind of response is if you have some shared experience. That comes from having talked to a lot of people, like the people you’re talking to at that moment. You have a lot of experience with that type of prospect or that type of customer or that type of business problem. And then you can dive deep and that leads to meaningful insights.

So in sum, I would say that the two major elements that anyone needs, if they’re about to embark on a B2B market research project is the right people and the right questions, and if you don’t have those, it’s probably better not to start at all.

4 Ways B2B Buyer Persona Research Supports the Sales Process

What was the last movie you watched? Maybe it was Top Gun: Maverick or Star Wars: The Force Awakens. Now, imagine that you’re a cast member on the set of one of these movies. If you have the movie script, you’re going to understand each character’s role in the movie, what their lines are, and what motivates them. In fact, if you understand the story well enough, you might just improvise an iconic scene. However, if you show up to set without a script, you won’t know what the story is, what your lines are, or how you should even respond to the characters around you.

The same idea applies to B2B sales. Fundamentally, you need to understand how the buyers and stakeholders in your target accounts talk to each other and how they embark on and conclude a buying journey. Buyer personas give you a sense of how these conversations start, end, and what type of “dialogue” each character uses. Most importantly, buyer personas give you a broader view of the decision making process.

Don’t Fast Forward Through Your Buyer Personas

One of the most common mistakes salespeople make is the failure to recognize that there are several decision makers involved in the buying process. In fact, Gartner reported that an average of six to 10 people are involved in most buying decisions. Our experience shows that many sales teams struggle to even identify five roles involved in the decision making process.

Moreover, Buying Facilitation author Sharon Drew Morgen calls out a key point about sales when she states, “a seller is in a unique position to serve a buyer by helping them discover the how, what, when, where, and why needed to solve a problem within the parameters of their culture.” She follows a bit later in her book with this key point as well, “[a single] buyer cannot know all of the answers to your questions because the odds are huge that they have a decision team working with them.”

So, how does a seller go from not knowing an organization to understanding their culture? How does a seller go from knowing one member of a buying team to understanding the needs of the entire buying team?

First, sales teams need to slow down and ensure they are meeting the needs of each stakeholder. The best way to do this is to establish some baselines as to what a typical stakeholder for your product or service might want from a vendor.

Secondly, sales teams need to be certain that the messages they are sending align with the needs of the buyers. Similarly, marketing teams need to ensure that any account based marketing (ABM) content or broader based content addresses these needs as well.

Third, marketing and sales teams need to understand how a stakeholder makes decisions over time. In nearly all cases, some members of the buying committee have a role to play at the start of the journey, middle, end, and a limited number will be involved in the project from start to finish.

For example, when a movie starts, we might have some sense of the climactic battle, but we don’t know the role that every actor might play. Is the character we meet in the opening scene going to be with us throughout the entire movie? Or will they “be brief and be gone”? Is the character we meet towards the end the true person our hero has to defeat in the end? Or is there someone lurking in the shadows who is even more powerful?

We see this idea play out in the Hobbit movie trilogy. It might be obvious as the first movie begins that Frodo is going to be with us through the end of the story. But Sam is the real surprise, as without his help, it wouldn’t be possible for Frodo to defeat Sauron.

The key takeaway: If you fast forward through the entire movie, would you really understand the plot (sales process)? You might understand how the battle (or sale) was won or lost, but you wouldn’t really understand how it happened. You wouldn’t understand which actor (or persona) was critical to the story, and you wouldn’t understand who was rooting for the hero (the seller) or against them.

Supporting Actors Need to Understand Everyone’s Role

We once worked with a client who had successfully built relationships with leadership at several universities. This client wanted to develop buyer personas for university c-suite roles to inform their marketing strategy and related materials. The goal was to take a role-based approach rather than leading with a product-first strategy.

To make this pivot successful however, the sales and marketing teams in our client would require a deeper understanding of the needs of key buyer personas. In particular, our client was focused on the needs of a VP of Research and a Chief Academic Officer in a university setting.

In a typical university, a VP of Research and a Chief Academic Officer have different responsibilities. A VP of Research is responsible for directing the university’s mission, focusing on policy issues, and establishing community relations. A Chief Academic Officer ensures academic quality in all departments, programs, and services within the organization.

Our client learned that each persona would need to hear a different message if they were to develop an interest in our client’s solution. The sales team would best be able to develop rapport with the Chief Academic Officer by discussing fundraising in academia. Similarly, the VP of Research might be interested in communicating to the student body about research grants or new partnerships.

The key takeaway: Buyer personas give you an essential look into the motivations and needs of each buyer you’ll meet on the journey to a successful sale.

Buyer Personas Tell You When It’s Time to Say Your Lines

We recently conducted a buyer persona project for a client who sold a SaaS solution of interest to law firms. They learned that law firms rarely make any recommendations to clients about what software to use because they don’t want to be liable for anything.

However, Chief Legal Officers or General Counsels who work for companies about to go public might be interested in the software.

As a salesperson, this discovery shows that you can’t always rely on referrals from every market segment you might touch. Without this information, a sales team’s outreach efforts would be fruitless. This knowledge allowed our client to utilize B2B buyer persona research to create extremely targeted outreach — maximizing the use of their sales and marketing team’s time.

The key takeaway: You can’t always rely on existing clients to evangelize for you. Sometimes, you run into people who aren’t interested in your services whatsoever. But with buyer persona research, you’ll be able to maximize the value of your efforts and minimize wasted opportunities.

Buyer Personas Align Sales and Marketing Teams

Famous movie duos aren’t always in agreement throughout a movie. Take Maverick and Rooster, for example. Throughout the better part of the movie, Rooster resents Maverick after learning that Maverick pulled Rooster’s application to flight school, setting him back from his peers.

However, after Maverick gets shot down in an effort to distract the enemy jets, it’s none other than Rooster who risks his own life to save Maverick. The dynamic duo then steals an old enemy F-14 aircraft and barely makes it back to the base alive.

The beef between Maverick and Rooster created a riff across the entire team. This tension almost cost the entire flight crew their lives as they trained for the dangerous mission.

The same idea holds true for sales and marketing teams. When everyone is clear on what personas you’re going after you can provide unified sales and marketing content without confusion.

The key takeaway: It’s frustrating for a buyer to get different messaging from sales and marketing teams. Being in alignment internally creates a better outcome for your buyers which is the ultimate goal. Aim for cohesion, not confusion.

Be the Hero Your Buyers Deserve

In Top Gun: Maverick, Hangman only gets 35 minutes of screen time. (In contrast, Maverick gets 113 minutes, and Rooster, 66 minutes.) Although Hangman is an integral part of the jet fighter squad at the beginning, he isn’t selected for the death-defying mission. However, just as Maverick and Rooster are about to be shot down, Hangman comes in and saves them in the most heroic way possible.

The moral here for B2B sales teams is clear. Even the characters with the least amount of screen time can make a big impact. It’s easy to focus on the stars and forget that other actors can help you achieve your goals. Like Frodo and Sam, or Maverick and Hangman, you need to understand all the key personas, not just the ones with the biggest titles or the most screen-time if you want to win the deal.

Finally, don’t ask your sales team to win a deal without giving them the knowledge of all the players that matter, especially those folks who seem to be merely a supporting actor at first glance. We can help you get that early first look at the script of the buyer’s journey so you’ll know before anyone else how the story turns out in the end.

With 15 years of experience in B2B tech market research, Cascade Insights understands the value in knowing your buyer personas. Learn more about our sales services here.

Special thanks to Sean Campbell, CEO, for advising on this piece.

B2B Messaging Frameworks: Grounded by Research, Activated by Marketing

October 17, 2022/in B2B Market Research Blog, B2B Marketing Blog, Blog Posts /by Ashley Wilson

Marketers often find themselves stuck when trying to create the right messaging frameworks for their organizations. Maybe it’s because they are nervous about suggesting a new messaging framework without the data to back it up. Or perhaps they weren’t hired to solve that type of problem; they were hired to drive existing marketing campaigns. So, they’re not confident in their ability to create new messaging. Or maybe it’s because they’ve been sitting at their end of the table for so long that they no longer even know what their buyers’ needs are.

3 Types of Market Research to Benefit Healthcare Cybersecurity Startups

September 16, 2022/in B2B Buyer Persona Research, B2B Competitive Landscape Analysis, B2B Market Research Blog, B2B Marketing Blog, Blog Posts, Brand Research, Sales Enablement Marketing /by Raeann Bilow

It’s no secret that the tech industry has been experiencing some unsettling circumstances recently. Nearly every week, another major tech company announces more hiring freezes or layoffs.

While much of the tech space is entrenched in uncertainty, there are certain segments within it that remain resilient. One such area is healthcare cybersecurity – one of the fastest growing among venture capitalists right now. In fact, the healthcare cybersecurity market is expected to reach $35B+ by 2027, more than triple its size in 2020.

During such a rapid growth period, companies run the risk of making the wrong decisions and quickly squandering any potential success. Conversely, making the right business decisions during this time can help a company to expand and scale sustainably.

B2B market research is a key component to helping a rapidly-expanding healthcare cybersecurity startup grow in the right direction. Here’s how market research – particularly buyer personas, brand research, and competitive landscape analyses – can all be instrumental in setting a new company up for success.
Read more

Panel Providers Vs. Expert Networks: Who Gives the Highest Quality Respondents?

July 21, 2022/in B2B Market Research Blog, Blog Posts, Uncategorized /by Ashley Wilson

Asking the right people to participate in your research study is just as important as designing and asking the right questions. You simply can’t have a successful market research project with a rushed recruiting effort at the start.

Sometimes, this means using a research vendor to assist with fielding the right participants. Vendors such as panel providers and expert networks are frequently tapped to identify respondents for research studies. But if you are using a research vendor and still throwing out a large number of respondents or are having trouble making sense of the data, it’s time to dig into the problem. And that may mean it’s time to switch to a new sample provider.

5 Pieces of Bad News a Competitive Landscape Analysis Can Deliver

June 22, 2022/in B2B Competitive Landscape Analysis, B2B Market Research Blog, Blog Posts /by Raeann Bilow

This is one of several blogs in our latest series, “Delivering Bad News to Good People,” where we explore different types of bad news we’ve had to deliver and how these discoveries help companies create meaningful impact within their organizations.

Marketers often have their own preconceived notions about a competitor’s success or failure in the marketplace based on anecdotal stories they’ve heard in the industry. A competitive landscape analysis can confirm many of these assumptions. However, it may also disrupt some of these beliefs by revealing unexpected challenges.

4 Types of Bad News B2B Brand Research Delivers

May 17, 2022/in B2B Market Research Blog, B2B Marketing Blog, Blog Posts, Brand Research /by Tricia Lindsey

B2B brand research can help to measure the relationship customers have with your company’s products or services. It may either confirm brand awareness hypotheses you already have, or it may surface new opportunities or unexpected perceptions among your buyers.

Sometimes, the findings uncovered in brand studies come as an unpleasant shock. Although initially upsetting, confronting the truth is a necessary first step to success. Once you understand where your brand stands, you can begin to address the gap between customers’ existing perceptions and how you want them to perceive your brand.

Perception precedes reality. – Andy Warhol

At Cascade Insights, we are often the messengers who deliver bad news to good marketers. Below, we’ve laid out four examples of bad brand news we’ve had to deliver, and how they were able to use that information to change the tides of perception — and reality — for their brands.

Bad News #1: No One Knows Who The Heck You Are

The context: We once worked with a cybersecurity client that was initially interested in learning about how their product compared to competing offerings.

In the survey that we administered, we asked respondents which cybersecurity organizations they were aware of. Their responses showed that our client’s product was not as well-known as what they had thought.

Key takeaway: Marketers often don’t like what the brand research tells them. But information — especially of the unpleasant variety — inspires action.

Once this client fully grasped the reality of their situation, they then had the leverage they needed to launch a smart B2B brand awareness strategy.

Bad News #2: No One Knows What You Offer

The context: One of our clients commissioned a brand study to investigate how recognizable their core offerings were to their clients. This client explained that its core offerings were foot traffic data, geo-contextual awareness, and point of interest data. Yet, at the same time this client wanted to expand from being seen as purely B2C focused to someone who could handle B2B needs.

We found our client had a very positive brand perception among B2C consumers. While this company’s social media presence was well-known, its B2B offerings were not as recognizable. In fact, almost 20% of survey respondents weren’t aware that this company offered foot traffic data. Given this client wanted to grow their B2B footprint, this was a challenging finding.

Key takeaway: While this may be perceived as bad news for our client, the study revealed key insights regarding its varying B2B and B2C awareness that enabled them to react, adapt and realign themselves with target customers.

Bad News #3: You’re Not Being Perceived How You Think

The context: One client of ours had recently made a significant effort to engage with the open source community and invest in a number of different open-source projects. After this investment, they wanted to conduct brand research to see if buyers recognized them as friendly to open-source.

Unfortunately, our research uncovered that buyers felt our client was not involved in open-source projects at all. To make matters worse, despite our client’s efforts in the open-source space, buyers didn’t feel that our client contributed to open-source projects. Further, our research revealed that buyers were more likely to work with a company that they perceived to be open-source friendly.

Key takeaway: Initially, this news was frustrating for our client to hear after already working to establish themselves in the open-source space. But, the research made it clear that they had more work to do. Additionally, it reinforced the value buyer’s placed on organizations who truly embraced open-source.

Bad News #4: You’re a Well-Known Brand, But Not a First Choice

The context: We conducted a brand study with a cybersecurity client who needed to determine their level of brand awareness. Our survey asked respondents what brand characteristics they felt were most important and how they would rate other cybersecurity on these attributes.

After completing the survey, we discovered that our client had a relatively high level of brand awareness. This result was a positive takeaway considering the market was so segmented. Despite this, only 5% of respondents said they would actually consider switching to our client from another vendor.

Key takeaway: You won’t be a good fit for everyone. But if you aren’t appealing to the customers you want, you need to know why. This brand study unearthed customer values that could inform the strategic messaging pillars to use in the company’s sales and marketing efforts.

We’re Not Always The Bad Brand News Bears

We’re not always the bearers of bad news. We’ve also seen instances where companies’ key brand attributes aligned exactly with what the market cared about.

For example, one of our clients wanted to conduct brand research to measure how well their customers’ perceptions mapped onto the company’s brand values. Our client believed they were perceived as a caring, friendly, and responsive online HR provider. Our research confirmed this hypothesis, and the respondents emphasized how much they appreciated that our client’s values aligned with buyers.

The point is, brand studies don’t always deliver bad news. They can also confirm positive sentiments about your products and services. But until you actually conduct the research, you won’t know the reality of where you stand in the market.

You Can’t Ask Life to Take The Lemons Back

In the well known game series “Portal,” Cave Johnson voices the following quote.

“All right, I’ve been thinking. When life gives you lemons? Don’t make lemonade. Make life take the lemons back! Get mad! ‘I don’t want your damn lemons! What am I supposed to do with these?”

Unfortunately, for Cave Johnson, and all of the rest of us, you can’t ask life to take its lemons back. Nor should you get mad about it. But you can make changes. Those changes can be a simple light that others in your organization can choose to follow. And that change in direction can lead to more prospects, customers, or market share.

If you’re tired of dealing with lemons, or you think you might have some lurking around, drop us a note. We can help you figure out what to do with them – instead of just throwing them back.

This blog post is brought to you by Cascade Insights, a firm that provides market research & marketing services exclusively to organizations with B2B tech sector initiatives. Want to learn more about the brand research we deliver? Our B2B Brand Research can help.

Special thanks to Sean Campbell, Co-Founder & CEO, Tyler Honsinger, Director of Research, and Raeann Bilow, Content Marketing Architect, for advising on this piece.

B2B Buyer Persona Research: Truth Over Templates

April 29, 2022/in B2B Buyer Persona Research, B2B Market Research Blog, Blog Posts /by Ashley Wilson

The power of a strong B2B buyer persona is undeniable. In the past, creating them brought a competitive advantage for companies that used them. Today, it’s more than just a benefit; it’s a necessity. However, if your personas are so generic that you can’t effectively reach your target audiences, you might want to think about basing those personas on a firmer foundation of truth.

B2B Buyer’s Journey: Buyers and Marketers in the Blender

March 8, 2022/in B2B Customer Journey Mapping, B2B Market Research Blog, Blog Posts /by Ashley Wilson

COVID-19 threw organizations into a blender, with significant repercussions for the B2B buyer’s journey.
Read more

Customer Satisfaction Research: Common Mistakes to Avoid

October 19, 2021/in B2B Market Research Blog, Blog Posts, Customer Satisfaction Research /by Tricia Lindsey

Avoid Spooking Customers With These Scary Stories

Customer satisfaction research is an essential tool business leaders use to understand their buyers. Companies that use customer satisfaction research effectively can quickly fix sales, marketing, and product problems that are causing customer pain.

Unfortunately, too many companies wait until they get to a crisis point before considering customer satisfaction research. It may take a drop in leads or high churn rates before these companies wonder what’s scaring off their customers.

Being proactive with customer satisfaction research is a smart move. Conducting this research on a regular basis can keep your customers from entering the graveyard of dissatisfaction and missed opportunity.

What is Customer Satisfaction Research?

Customer satisfaction research allows an organization to determine how happy customers are with a company’s products, services, and capabilities.

The most common types of customer satisfaction metrics are the Customer Effort Score (CES), Customer Satisfaction Score (CSAT) and Net Promoter Score (NPS).

Customer Effort Score (CES)

A Customer Effort Score quantifies how difficult it is for customers to resolve and issue or fulfill a request. For example, you might utilize a CES survey to ask, “On a scale of ‘very easy’ to ‘very difficult,’ how easy was it to use a company’s product?” From there, you would take the total sum of responses and divide it by the total number of survey respondents to determine your CES score. Customer effort scores point out areas of friction between a company’s product or service and its customers.

Customer Satisfaction Scores (CSAT)

Generating Customer Satisfaction Scores is another commonly used approach in customer satisfaction research. A CSAT survey may ask, “How satisfied are you with the ease of doing business with our company?” on a scale from ‘very satisfied’ to ‘very dissatisfied.’

Net Promoter Score (NPS)

A company’s Net Promoter Score measures customer loyalty. This is accomplished by determining which customers would be willing to recommend you. NPS is used more frequently at companies with product-led growth (PLG) strategies where user acquisition, expansion, conversion and retention are all driven primarily by the product itself.

Customer Satisfaction Research Mistakes: 4 Scary Stories to Avoid

Some of our clients come to us after an attempt to work with a different research supplier or a DIY effort. In the spirit of Halloween, we sat down with a few of our internal experts to uncover some of these scary stories. Hopefully, this bit of knowledge will help you avoid the same traps in the future.

Scary Story #1 – Hearing Only From Extremists

Organizations have raving fans and they have hellacious haters. Building out a customer satisfaction research program that focuses on these two subgroups is unfortunately easy to do.

There are a couple of reasons for this. The first is the 90-9-1 rule, which states that in any internet community 1% of the people contribute and 99% of the people lurk. Hence, a poorly thought out survey effort may only grab those who feel most passionate about your brand, either positively or negatively.

For example, your research might reveal that the customers who purchase your products tend to complain more. But in reality, it could be that the only customers who are driven to respond are the ones who have complaints. Even if this is the case, your data is going to appear as though all of your customers dislike your products.

Remember, a poorly structured sample may not represent your customers. A great customer satisfaction research effort needs to dig deeply into the 99%.

Scary Story #2 – Entering The Fight Without a Sidekick

Just because a customer says something bad doesn’t mean you have to fix it. In fact, companies regularly make decisions that generate short-term negatives but long-term benefits.

Do you remember when Adobe moved from an annual price model to a monthly subscription model for Adobe Photoshop? This announcement was met with a lot of pushback from users. Fortunately, Adobe decided to stick with the change because Adobe could foresee a future where subscriptions would be the norm.

Businesses have to make tough decisions like the one Adobe did all the time. Yet, it’s equally true that making these tough decisions without a sidekick can be incredibly difficult.

The best discussion we’ve seen of how this plays out in real life comes from the book, “The Hard Thing About Hard Things,” written by Ben Horowitz. In the book, Horowitz describes a matrix that highlights how decisions must be made if a company is going to succeed. It includes 4 quadrants on a 2×2 grid.

	You are Right	You are Wrong
You Decide Against the Crowd	Few remember that you made the decision but the company succeeds.	Everyone remembers the decision and you are downgraded, ostracized, or fired.
You Decide With the Crowd	Everyone who advised you remembers the decision and the company succeeds.	You receive the minimum blame possible for getting it wrong, but the company suffers.

Using Horowitz’s grid, it’s easy to see how important it is to have a strong set of research insights in hand when you’re about to make a decision against the crowd. Without it you’ll have to win the day on your instinct and your persuasive abilities. If those skills fail you, scary outcomes are the result.

Yet, with the right research insights in hand, it can become very clear whether that decision to ignore the crowd is the right one. Plus, you’ll have at least one sidekick at your side to share in the glory of a well made decision.

Scary Story #3 – Using Quant as a Hammer and a Screwdriver

One of the biggest mistakes you can make when conducting customer satisfaction research is to focus on quantitative approaches alone. Quantitative research helps us answer the who, when, how and where, but frequently fails to answer the why.

Consider this scenario: You’ve received a lot of negative feedback about your sales process, so you conduct a quantitative survey. Imagine a sales pipeline where a customer first fills out a contact form, then talks to a business development representative (BDR). The BDR is pleasant and doesn’t ask too many questions, so the customer then meets with an account manager for an in-depth conversation. It’s at this phase where the customer realizes your company isn’t a good fit for their business goals. The customer then goes out to rate their experience with your sales team as a poor one, implying you wasted their time.

If you looked at this scenario only from a quantitative perspective, you might think there is an issue at the account manager stage based on the survey results. You might only be looking at the what, when and how. But, upon further examination and the use of qualitative research, it turns out the BDRs aren’t properly qualifying new leads.

Scary Story #4 – Don’t Be Overtaken by the Bots

Picture this: You find an automated service like Satismeter or Delighted to assist with gathering customer feedback. This is your dream! Now you can just sit back and read the reports.

Wrong.

Pop-up customer support bots can do some things well. These services are excellent for analyzing and capturing quantitative feedback. Some bots can do clustering and comparative analysis. However, while these tools can collect the data, they can’t always tell you why customers are upset. They can only tell you the what, when, and how. Therefore these tools tend to leave you with a ton of unanswered questions.

Customer Satisfaction Research: It’s Time to Be One Step Ahead

It’s a well-known fact that actors in horror movies make stupendously bad decisions. Whether it’s splitting up the group, hiding in obvious places, or simply failing to fight back these actors never avoid their doom.

As a company though, it’s easier to avoid a horrible end game. First, listen to your customers. Second, put that feedback in the right context. Third, make solid decisions on what you’ve learned.

Finally, don’t wait until your customers get spooked to consider customer satisfaction research. When it comes to knowing how your customers feel about you, you should always be one step ahead.

With more than 15 years of experience in the B2B technology sector, Cascade Insights understands how customer satisfaction research can improve the customer experience and lead to improved customer loyalty. Visit B2B Customer Satisfaction Research to learn more. For more information on all types of B2B market research, visit What is B2B Market Research.

Special thanks to Scott Swigart, President and Chief Research Officer, and Philippe Boutros, Chief of Staff, for advising on this piece.