There are four different types of research that can be leveraged in the product development cycle.
Each type of customer research comes with its own set of distinct benefits at specific stages of the cycle:
1. Exploratory research
With varying customer needs that evolve with each passing day, oftentimes product teams can end up with unique problems — as well as the demand to understand the problem first to decide on the best approach with which to move forward.
Such situations require a very quick response and a clear segregation of what is known and what still needs to be learned.
Why do it:
Exploratory customer research helps product teams be aware and mindful of the challenges that a particular industry faces.
Learning from both successful and failed launches can be identified early via exploratory research, which helps build empathy with clients and customers alike. With empathy at the core, a product can be designed well for an organization as well as customers.
When to do it:
Exploratory customer research is done at the very beginning, before the product life cycle is kicked off. This can be when there’s a
- New domain (a new market/customer group sharing a common problem or need that needs to be addressed)
- New client (with unique business objectives along with new ideas to mature)
- Pre-sales initiative (by reaching out to an existing client base with ideas to implement with respect to emerging customer needs or technological advancements)
Exploratory research may kick off the following activities:
- Industry benchmarking
- Competitive analysis
- Portfolio overview (Internal Competitive analysis)
- Evaluate across a 2×2 diagram to define maturity and usefulness
- Stakeholder interviews