Why Is Market Research Important for Customer Experience?

Our experts weigh in on how market research supports customer experience — and why faster marketplace insights give brands a competitive edge.

For some brands, market research can be a nice-to-have. But for brands looking to deliver the kinds of great customer experiences that contribute to overall satisfaction, loyalty, and long-term retention, it’s a must-have. At its core, this type of analysis helps brands better understand their customers — and customers-to-be.

How can market research support your customer experience program?

Market research reveals the cultural forces that are shaping a given industry, trends that are unfolding within the competitive landscape, and what’s happening across the customer journey and the non-customer journey alike — serving up a clearer picture of the marketplace as a whole. 

“Market research helps you better understand what your customers and your non-customers — or potential customers — are doing when they are not interacting with your brand, so leaders have insight into the biggest opportunities for improvement and growth,” explains Margaryta Rashev, VP of Product, Market Research at Medallia. 

As a strategic guide, market research makes it possible for brands to incorporate the voice of the customer (and potential customers) in everything they do — and validate whether the products, services, and campaigns they’re developing are having their desired impact. 

Savvy brands can use these insights to achieve the top two priorities for any organization: to drive growth and retention.

How is market research changing, and why is it becoming more important for CX teams?

Market research is becoming more agile, as businesses are feeling the pressure to conduct in-depth analyses faster than ever to move in lockstep with changing consumer behavior and evolving competitor dynamics. 

“One of the big things we’re seeing is the need for quicker time to insight,” says Cassie Wilcox, VP of Global Research and Insights at Medallia. “Brands don’t have weeks and weeks to sit around and wait for that report to come out. They need to get a question into the field and have answers within 72 hours.”

What brands can learn from market research vs. customer experience insights

While comprehensive CX programs are great at measuring experiences across channels, touchpoints, and interactions in the moment, brands also need a way to check in with customers over time to make sure that they’re staying on top of their changing needs.

Organizations can use market research to answer questions like:

• What don’t we know about our customers’ needs, interests, or preferences?
• What don’t we know about what’s happening in the broader industry and competitive landscape?
• What are the key expectations of our customers that we are not fulfilling today? 

Based on these insights, companies can adjust their ongoing CX programs to adapt to any market changes. 

“As consumers evolve, which they do all the time, brands are constantly being thrown new curveballs,” explains Wilcox. “Consumers are going to act, and interact, with brands differently. Being able to have the research capabilities to understand them better helps set up customer experience programs for longer-term success.”

Market research can help answer broad questions related to brand perceptions, awareness, and overall health, which can be used together with customer experience metrics — like Net Promoter Score® (NPS®), overall satisfaction (OSAT), and likelihood to return (LTR) — to have a more holistic understanding of business performance and levers that can be pulled to drive revenue.

Market research can also help answer highly specific questions, such as exploring a given consumer demographic, like:

• Who is Gen Z, and what’s driving their behavior?

Market research offers a window into the factors that influence purchasing (and non-purchasing) decisions, such as household income, demographics, and social factors.

For example, if a brand’s NPS® score has been trending downwards in a given market, CX insights can tell the team that this is happening and uncover some of the reasons why — but market research can help provide a fuller view of the factors influencing this change, and shed light on the actionable next steps that can be taken to turn things around. 

In other words, CX insights tell us what happens when our customers are directly transacting and interacting with our brand. Market research tells us what our customers (and non-customers) are doing when they are not transacting with us.

“Market research is the other side of the coin of CX insights,” says Rashev. “When you’re trying to understand the totality of the experience, market research is critical.”

Launch a Market Research Study — Fast

Medallia’s self-service Agile Research capabilities enable brands to answer their biggest questions in a matter of clicks. Quickly launch branded surveys with an easy interface, get connected to millions of participants worldwide through our leading third-party panel provider, select your preferred demographic and behavioral criteria, launch your study, and gain insights in the moment with real-time reporting.