Before You Decide, Ask the Question Behind the Decision

Most leaders I talk to have plenty of information. What’s often missing is the evidence they need for the decision in front of them.

They have sales data, stories from the field, and a comment from a customer meeting that stuck with them. Together, those inputs tell a story. The question is how much of the story they capture.

Good research starts with the decision. Are you deciding whether to launch a new offering? Whether customers will accept a price increase? What to change to keep more customers?

Each decision calls for different evidence. A survey can show how widespread a view is. Interviews can help explain why people hold it. A focus group can reveal how people weigh trade-offs as they discuss a choice.

Start with a method, and you can end up with a polished report that answers a question nobody needed answered.

At a former employer, the prevailing view was that customers who took our surveys were mostly “complainers.” I wanted to test a different hypothesis. I suspected that customers willing to spend time telling us what worked and what didn’t were more likely to be loyal.

We compared customers who responded with those who didn’t. Survey respondents were nearly three times as likely to be loyal customers as nonrespondents.

That changed how we interpreted both the feedback and the silence. A critical comment could come from a loyal customer who wanted us to improve. And participation itself was a signal of loyalty. For retention decisions, that raised a more consequential question: What were we missing about the experiences of customers who were less likely to stay?

That question changes how you design the research. If you want to improve the experience for loyal customers, the people already answering your surveys can tell you a lot. If you want to understand what might drive customers away, you need a way to hear from the people your surveys tend to miss.

By the end of a research engagement, you should know what the evidence supports, where it’s thin, and what you can reasonably do next.

If you’re facing a decision and the evidence feels thin, write down the decision in one sentence. Then write down what you’d need to know to make it well. That second sentence is where good research begins.

Sherwood Enterprises · Monroe, CT

Marketing strategy and market research for leaders facing decisions that matter.