Customer research

What customer research is for

Customer research for a small business isn't a big survey with charts. It's a handful of honest conversations and a close look at data you already have, done to answer three questions: who buys from you, why they picked you, and what nearly made them pick someone else. Those answers decide what your ads say, what goes on the first screen of your website and which offer you lead with.

The value is in the exact words. When a customer says "I just wanted someone who'd show up on the day they said", that sentence will outperform any slogan you could write yourself.

How the interviews work

You pick five to ten recent customers, ideally a mix of your best ones and a couple who bought only once. You send each a short message asking if they'd spare fifteen minutes. I take the calls on the phone or Zoom, at a time that suits them.

I ask open questions and then dig into the answers:

• What was going on when you started looking for this service?
• Where did you search first, and what did you type?
• Who else did you consider, and why didn't you go with them?
• What almost stopped you from booking?
• What would you tell a friend about us?

I also try to talk to one or two people who requested a quote and went elsewhere. They're harder to reach but often the most useful: they tell you exactly where you lost them.

The data side

Interviews tell you why. Data tells you how many and how much. I look at your sales or CRM records to see which customers bring the most revenue over a year, which services have the best margin and which months are busy. Then I check what people actually search for in your area using Google's keyword data and Search Console, if your site has it connected.

The mix matters. A customer who spends $300 once is a different target from one who spends $3,000 a year, even if both are happy. The research shows you which one to chase with your ad budget.

What you get

A short summary: two or three main customer types, their triggers, their doubts, the phrases they use, and where they look for you. It feeds straight into buyer personas and your value proposition. You also keep the interview notes, so you can come back to them when writing a new service page or briefing a designer.

Mistakes that skew the results

The easiest mistake is interviewing only your biggest fans. They're pleasant to talk to, but they rarely mention the doubts that make other people walk away. Another is asking leading questions, such as "you liked our fast service, right?", which produce polite agreement and no insight. A third is letting the owner run the calls. Customers are more candid with someone outside the business, which is one reason I do the interviews myself. Finally, research that never reaches the website or the ads is wasted. I always end with concrete changes: which headline to rewrite, which objection to answer, which audience to stop paying for.

When customers speak more than one language

In Canada, plenty of small businesses serve customers in two or more languages. A Ukrainian-speaking dental patient in Edmonton or a Polish-speaking homeowner in Mississauga may search in English but decide in their first language. I speak English, Polish, Russian and Ukrainian, so I can run interviews where customers are most comfortable, which usually means more honest answers.

Price

Customer research is included in the marketing strategy for $2,400 CAD, final, together with the audit, competitor analysis, channels, budget and KPIs. If you'd rather run the interviews yourself, a one-hour consultation at $70 gives you a question script and a way to sort the answers. The first 30 minutes of any consultation are free.