The ultimate guide to developing a customer research plan
A plan is a structured roadmap for learning about your customers—what they want, how they use your product or service, and how they feel about the level of service you provide. Whether your business is large or small, it’s how you turn customer understanding into growth and a more personalized consumer experience.
The data gathered from a customer research plan highlights actionable steps you can take to serve customers better. It can also open new revenue opportunities and create a stronger connection between your business and your customers.
Here’s how to develop one in ten steps.
Step 1: Define your research objectives
Before creating your customer research plan, set out a series of research objectives. Define your goals for conducting customer research, and determine what you hope to take away from the research plan.
The data you glean from the project is only helpful if you clearly understand what decisions it will affect in the end. You should also set a measure of success for the project.
Step 2: Choose your research method
Choosing your research method helps streamline your project. Qualitative research methods involve gathering and interpreting non-numerical data, such as information from interviews, personal accounts, observation, or . Quantitative research collects data from sources such as , database reports, and experiments.
The method you choose will define how you conduct the project and interpret your findings.
Step 3: Identify your target audience
Early in planning, identify the customer segments you believe will be most beneficial to your customer research plan. Determine not only who you want to reach but why. Highlight what you know about these customers—age, buying habits, location, preferences—and what you still need to learn.
As you outline this information, you may identify other questions and points of interest for your project.
Step 4: Create your research questions
allow for plenty of input from respondents. For that reason, many project leaders prefer , which let respondents elaborate.
Depending on your plan’s outline and research method, it might make more sense to use multiple-choice questions, slider questions, or questions, which ask respondents to choose from a range of possible responses.
Step 5: Develop your research plan
Organize your project by developing a strong research plan. Part of this is creating an overall timeline covering the research activities, what needs to happen, and when. This is also a good point to set a budget—customer research plans can be expensive undertakings, depending on the tools and software you’ll need.
If you’re asking customers to participate in person, consider offering refreshments or scheduling an event space. Factor all of this into both the budget and the overall timeline.
Step 6: Collect your data
For many business leaders, capturing the data is the most exciting part of a customer research plan. Focus groups and in-person interviews are some of the most powerful ways to collect . If you’re using a focus group, work with a trained moderator who can lead the group, and choose a venue that makes participants feel comfortable.
Provide consent forms to focus group participants, and do your best to create a welcoming atmosphere. Don’t let the group run too long, and allow for breaks if the session is scheduled for more than an hour. Finally, give participants a chance to share feedback about the experience—this data is valuable for future research projects, letting you know what to remove, keep, or adjust.
Step 7: Analyze your data
After you’ve collected the data, the analysis begins. If you used for your customer research plan, you’ll likely need to process and examine the results. Allow plenty of time for this step, since you’ll want to ensure the information is correct.
Always check for duplicates or skewed information. Even one error in your research can cast doubt over the entire report. Also ensure you’re protecting your customers’ information and following any relevant compliance rules.
Step 8: Share your findings
Displaying your findings is one of the most important steps in a customer research plan. Distill them into a summary that’s concise yet powerful. Data modeling is a popular way to present insights from —this could look like clustering or association, though many customer-focused projects opt for time series presentations to show trends over time.
The method you choose should depend on the content of your research plan as well as the context and purpose of the study.
Step 9: Implement changes based on your research
Use the insights from your customer research plan to improve your business and make smarter decisions. With the information your customers provide, you can improve your products and services and give customers more of what they want.
For example, if your focus group said they want more product education, you could add informational pages to your website or a blog you update on an ongoing basis. If the data reveals customers want to connect directly with representatives, consider adding support channels such as SMS or live chat.
Step 10: Monitor and evaluate your research plan
It takes time for any major changes to take effect, but measure the impact of your research over time. Reaching out to focus group members after implementing changes—or running a large-scale survey—can show you how customers are receiving your updates.
There’s room for in any customer research plan, so don’t set it and forget it. Regular check-ins with your customer base will keep customers happy and keep your business growing.
Use customer research plans to illuminate opportunities
Customer research plans let businesses get in touch with the people who purchase their products and services and better understand what they want. They also help you make more informed business decisions, which translates to more market share and revenue growth. An effective customer research plan can be a big project, but the payoff is worth it in both the short and long term.
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