How to Conduct Market Research for Your Customer Experience Program

Learn how to conduct market research that delivers actionable insights for driving customer growth and retention.

Market research helps brands gain insights to better acquire, retain, and win back customers.

It’s the ideal complement to traditional customer experience (CX) programs, because while CX insights tell companies what’s happening when their customers directly interact with their brand, market research reveals what’s happening when their customers (and potential customers) are not. 

Market research uncovers broader insights about an industry as a whole, larger trends within the competitive landscape, marketplace dynamics, and factors shaping both the customer journey and the non-customer journey.

If you’re looking to launch a market research study to supplement your customer experience program, here’s what you need to know.  

Getting started with market research for your CX program

Find out how to conduct market research like a pro by following these recommended steps from Medallia’s market research experts, who help manage market research initiatives for industry-leading brands across 150+ countries.

Step 1: Define your objective — the business question you’re trying to answer

Before starting your market research efforts, be clear about your objective and which questions your market research study will answer to drive the business forward.

“It’s very important as you design your study and you define your objectives to understand what you want the outcome of your market research study to be,” explains Margaryta Rashev, VP of Product, Market Research at Medallia. “You don’t want your outcome to be just interesting data that you present to your stakeholders, and they say, ‘Ok, what do I do with this right now?’” 

That’s a challenge the market research industry has long faced that can be overcome by collaborating closely with stakeholders as you define your objective — that way, you’re able to 

generate actionable insights that drive more impact for the organization. 

Step 2: Develop a hypothesis of what you think the answer to your business question might be

The key to this step is to use existing data or past studies to make an educated guess. 

Now you may be wondering: how do I develop a solid hypothesis? 

We’re happy you asked! There are four steps to this process:

1. Clearly state the expected relationship between the variables you’re looking to analyze in your study.
2. Make your hypothesis specific, measurable, and testable.
3. Use an “if/then” structure as you develop your statement, clearly identifying the independent variable (what you’re changing) and the dependent variable (what you believe the outcome will be).
4. Ensure your hypothesis aligns with your overarching research goals.

Step 3: Understand the main types of market research and select the one that is best suited to solve your challenge 

There are three main types of market research studies:

• Ad-hoc studies enable insights teams to answer one-off questions on a one-time basis
• Foundational studies explore the essence of who a company’s customers are 
• Ongoing studies help businesses that are looking for answers to recurring questions, where the responses may change over time or based on a scenario

Step 4: Determine your market research methodology 

Figure out the type of data — whether quantitative, qualitative, or both — that will provide the insights needed to solve your challenge, and clearly outline the audiences you want to tap into to collect these insights.

Deciding between a qualitative or quantitative study

Quantitative studies are a good fit if you need a larger sample size and you’re looking to ask your customers (or non-customers) a lot of questions. 

“If you are looking to get more qualitative insights and get a deeper understanding into consumers’ feelings and what’s shaping their behavior, you may want to consider something like a focus group or an interview with a select group of your customers,” says Rashev. 

Finding market research participants

“In terms of potential market research participants, depending on your objectives, you may want to reach out to your own customer base, internal teams, or an independent research panel of a population outside of your four walls,” says Andrew Custage, Sr. Director, Head of Research Insights at Medallia. 

Later, when you launch your market research study, you’ll want to apply quotas or weights to ensure your participants are representative of the populations you’re interested in learning more about.  

Step 5: Find the right market research partner

Traditionally, organizations have had to wait a long time to launch and uncover learnings from market research studies, but slow time to insights prevents leaders from keeping up with changing consumer preferences and market dynamics. 

“When businesses are asking very important questions that relate to how to execute a specific strategy, they need insights to be faster and more accurate,” explains Rashev.

“Between professional survey takers and bots skewing results, brands need to trust that the answers they’re getting are authentic. More than ever, brands need market research partners who will ensure the highest quality of data,” adds Cassie Wilcox, VP of Global Research and Insights at Medallia.

To ensure high-quality, timely results, work with a trusted customer experience and market research company that leverages a suite of omnichannel technologies that draws the connection between how consumer research insights help brands drive actions that improve customer experiences.

Step 6: Write your market research questionnaire

“As you design your questions, be sure to balance simplicity with thoroughness,” says Custage.  

“The questions you develop should use clear language and not overwhelm the respondent, but also should have enough choices available to not leave out key possibilities. Nor should multiple choices overlap that mean the same thing,” he adds. “For example, asking a question of why someone chose to purchase from a certain retailer would lack major possibilities if it didn’t have an answer choice for the store location. Likewise, there may be improper overlap if there were separate choices for ‘cost’ and for ‘low prices.’”

To avoid bias for specific answers, carefully consider the order of your questions and the order in which choices appear. 

Final steps: Launch your study, collect responses, and analyze and report on your findings

As you prepare your analysis, you may want to pair your results with external behavioral data sets, such as credit card datasets, foot traffic datasets, or receipt datasets available via partners or existing internal datasets — such as your company’s customer experience data, transactional data, or operational data.  

“These can provide a lot of information about the ‘why’ behind a certain trend,” Rashev explains. “The most power always comes from combining different insights. Taking a more holistic approach helps you better understand exactly what the drivers are behind a specific issue and how to best inform your strategy.” 

Let’s walk through an example of how CX insights inform consumer research efforts. Let’s say you received a low CSAT score on a new product offering. Based on this initial feedback from your CSAT survey, you decide to dive deeper and launch a research study. This study enables you to ask more detailed questions to pinpoint what the exact issues are — as well as ask how your competitors’ similar products are getting it right — which ends up justifying your product team’s request for additional investment.

By leveraging a combination of insights from multiple sources, brands won’t run the risk of attempting to answer important questions using only one piece of the puzzle. Instead, they’ll achieve complete visibility to the entire puzzle.

Launch your market research study faster than ever with Medallia

Medallia’s self-service Agile Research capabilities enable brands to seamlessly connect their customer experience and market research efforts to answer their biggest questions in a matter of clicks. 

Quickly launch branded surveys with our easy interface, get connected to millions of participants worldwide, select your preferred demographic and behavioral criteria, launch your study, and then unlock insights in the moment with real-time, customizable reporting — empowering you to easily take your CX insights to the next level.