Stop avoiding customer research: It's costing your business

I see it all the time in online forums and hear it from clients. There's a cynical belief that quietly derails projects and stifles innovation. It sounds like this:

"The hardest truth is people will lie to your face about wanting your product to be nice, then never use it."

This sentiment, and others like it, are dangerous because they feel true. They give teams permission to skip the crucial work of customer research, shielding them from the truth and allowing them to operate on blind faith. This fear is often masked by other excuses:

• The awkwardness of interviewing people when you have nothing to offer yet.
• The terror of hearing that an idea you're passionate about might be wrong.
• The belief that your industry expertise is a substitute for direct customer insight.

But what if these fears aren't a reason to stop, but a sign that your entire process is broken? In this article, we will deconstruct these common excuses for avoiding research. We'll uncover the true financial cost of operating on assumptions and give you a practical, detective-like framework to finally get the authentic customer stories your business needs to grow.

Subscribe to the monthly newsletter for marketing and research strategies and insights ➡️

The real cost of avoiding customer research

When you use the fear of bad research as an excuse to do no research, you are not saving time or resources. You are making a direct trade-off against growth. The value of genuine customer understanding is not theoretical; it's a clear economic indicator.

• It directly impacts revenue: Companies that build a strategic capability around customer experience see an 80% increase in revenue. Avoiding the conversations that build that experience means leaving growth on the table.
• It increases customer churn: A superior, insight-driven experience can decrease customer churn by as much as 15%. When you operate on assumptions, you're not building what customers truly need to stay.
• It surrenders market share: The global cost of bad customer experiences is estimated at $4.7 trillion in lost spending each year. Each piece of authentic feedback you uncover is a chance to capture a piece of that prize.

The risk isn't that you'll get some "fake" feedback. The risk is that your avoidance will guarantee you build something your customers don't truly value.

Why your process creates the problems you fear

The truth is, feedback only feels "fake" or "awkward" when the process is flawed. The problems you fear are the direct result of a broken approach. Let's break down the most common excuses.

Excuse #1: "The participants aren't real, and the feedback is fake."

This is a legitimate concern. There are valid questions about the quality of some paid research panels, with stories of people trying to scam the system to get paid. This is why screener questions and reputable recruitment methods are crucial.

However, most "fake" feedback isn't malicious. It’s the polite, useless answers you get from a flawed conversation. The problem isn't the participant; it's the process you put them through.

Excuse #2: "We already know our customers better than anyone."

This is the expert’s trap. Deep industry knowledge is invaluable, but it also creates blind spots and biases. Without a structured plan for research, teams inevitably design studies that simply confirm what they already believe.

I once saw a company spend three years and a fortune building a fantastic software product, only to realise they'd been marketing it to the completely wrong audience. Their initial research was designed, unintentionally, to confirm their own assumptions about who the customer was. Their expertise blinded them to the real market.

Excuse #3: "Conducting interviews is too difficult and awkward."

This is perhaps the most honest excuse. Running a good interview is hard. The word "interview" itself puts people on the defensive, reminding them of a stiff, formal job interview where answers are prepared and rehearsed.

A great customer conversation is the opposite. It’s not a rigid Q&A; it's an exploratory process that requires empathy and the ability to think on your feet. It's less like a job interview and more like being a detective.

This is where most teams fail. They make a few common mistakes that guarantee an awkward and fruitless conversation:

• They treat it like a sales call, spending more time pitching their idea than listening.
• They rush through a checklist of questions, leaving no space for silence or thoughtful answers.
• They shut down interesting tangents to "stay on track," missing opportunities for unexpected insights.
• They ask direct, leading questions that pressure the customer into giving a simple, polite answer.

This final mistake is the most damaging, and it's what leads directly to the "fake" feedback everyone fears.

The detective's playbook: A framework for authentic insight

To fix the output, you must fix the input. The solution is to change your mindset. This means stop acting like a salesperson trying to validate an idea, and start behaving like a detective looking for clues.

A good detective never starts an investigation blind. They begin with a case file. For customer research, your 'case file' is your research plan. Before you talk to anyone, you must clearly define:

• What you want to learn: What are your core questions and learning goals?
• How you'll learn it: What is the right research method for this inquiry?
• What you'll do with it: How will the insights be used to make decisions?

Central to this plan is your guiding question, or hypothesis. This is where many teams go wrong. They form a biased hypothesis and treat the research process as an experiment designed only to validate their existing idea.

A detective's mindset is different. You must start with a balanced, fair hypothesis—a core assumption that needs to be tested. But during the interview, your goal is not just to find evidence that proves you right. It’s to be radically open to any clue:

• Evidence that supports your theory.
• Evidence that completely invalidates it.
• Unexpected details that open up entirely new lines of inquiry.

This is where the real detective work begins. The most valuable clues aren't found by asking about the future, but by digging into the past. The key is to focus on their past experiences and current behaviours.

Users famously "don't know what they want," but they know exactly what their problems are. They can tell you in excruciating detail about the hacks and workarounds they use to solve them right now.

This is where you find the gold. Are they forcing an intern to spend a full day wrestling with spreadsheets just to get a report? Have they built a fragile system of complex macros to connect different systems? The story of the workaround reveals the depth of the pain far better than any direct question ever could.

Transforming your questions

This detective-like approach, popularised by books like The Mom Test, relies on asking questions that probe past behaviour instead of future hypotheticals.

Here’s how to transform your questions from bad to great:

Wrapping up: The only thing worse than fake feedback is no feedback

The fear of getting it wrong is a powerful deterrent. But the belief that customer feedback is inherently "fake" is a myth—a dangerous excuse that allows bias to thrive and businesses to build in the dark.

The space between polite feedback and authentic customer truth is where products fail. Closing this gap requires more than just a new set of questions; it requires a new mindset. It means shifting from a biased interrogator to an empathetic detective—one who starts with a clear plan, asks questions about real experiences, and listens for the stories behind the data.

Ready to uncover authentic insights?

Here's how I can help you move from theory to action:

• Download my free Customer Research Starter Kit to begin your own detective work today.
• Book a free discovery call to discuss your specific challenges and goals with me.