Is your customer always right?

When it comes to their opinions, yes. 

Your customers know your brand inside and out. They experience it from the frontlines. They’re not thinking of marketing techniques from some C-suite corner office. 

Their opinions are from the real world. And they want to share them.

These nuanced customer insights are like unpolished nuggets of gold for you. All you have to do is go digging.

But what’s the best way to get customer insights? There are a few options, and each one offers pros and cons.

‍1. Market Research Firm

‍Entire companies exist for the sole purpose of harvesting customer insights. 

These market research firms have departments of people who will travel the country and ask actual humans their thoughts on anything you want to know about.

‍Pro: They do all the work for you.

‍You don’t have to lift a finger. Market research firms reach out to the people, document their insights, and write up reports breaking down the findings. 

All you have to do is tell them what you want them to search for.

‍Con: It’s expensive.

‍All those people traveling the country and meeting with customers cost money. Plus, the time it takes to analyze the findings and write up the reports.

On top of that, a lot of these firms aren’t even meeting customers around the country. Some use online surveys, but they still bill you as if they’re hopping in a car and knocking on doors.

You’ll get a good result if you use a market research firm, but you’re going to pay a premium for it.

‍2. Focus groups

There is strength in numbers. A focus group brings many people together in one room where they get to share their opinions with other people. 

This lets them bounce ideas off one another, and in the end, you might get even better insights with this collaborative approach.

‍Pro: You can watch real people as they give their opinion.

‍You’re not separated from your customers like the market research firm. A focus group allows you to see the people in action. 

Plus, you get to watch them from behind that James Bond one-sided mirror, which is pretty cool.

‍Con: It’s time consuming and not always beneficial.

‍You have a mountain of work on your desk. Do you really want to drive to some industrial park hours away and listen to people in real time?  

It’d be much more efficient if someone else could be there, but then you’d miss out on hearing your customers’ insights.

Plus, a lot of times focus groups don’t even work. According to Harvard Business School professor Gerald Zaltman, 80 percent of new products and services fail within six months if they’ve been vetted through focus groups.

‍3. Online Surveys

‍You no doubt have gotten an email from some company asking you to fill out a survey for them. Sometimes they offer a gift card or chance to win a prize if you fill it out. 

Usually, though, it’s just a survey. But that survey can collect a bunch of opinions quickly, and that’s worth a lot. 

Pro: It’s scalable.

‍You can send thousands of survey emails at once. Sure, not everyone will respond, but if you’ve built an email list full of customers, some of them will be willing to share their thoughts.

‍Con: It’s impersonal.

‍“On a scale of 1 to 10…” doesn’t really allow for the nuance that your customers have. Even an “additional comments” section might not capture their full thoughts about your brand.

‍4. Track user behavior on website

‍You’ve got people going to your website, and that means you’ve got DATA! That data can translate into some impressive customer insights.

‍Pro: It’s easy to analyze.

‍You might know a certain product is selling more than others. But the numbers might reveal a different product page that’s getting more attention but isn’t converting as well. 

It’s remarkable what you can glean from a couple numbers on a screen.

‍Con: It turns your customers into lifeless data points.

‍It’s difficult to imagine graphs as people with hopes and dreams. That’s what you have to do when you’re analyzing your website data.

There are people behind those numbers, and they don’t get to speak their voice with website analytics.

‍5. Capsule

All the options above have some downside. They were either expensive, time consuming, or impersonal. 

Never fear! We here at Capsule figured out a way for you to get customer insights without any of those problems.

‍Pro: It’s fast, easy, and affordable.

‍With a couple clicks, you can collect hundreds of recordings of your customers sharing their insights about your brand. Each opinion is unique, and you’ll have access to all of them in one place!

Real people sharing real personal thoughts just for you in a fast, digital way.

And Capsule costs a fraction of the other options above.

‍Con: ???

‍Is there ever a thing as too fast? 

Like, instantaneous? 

Like, instant editing and exporting?

That’s the only one we could come up with. 

There really isn’t a downside to Capsule, especially because you can try it free for 14 days.

‍Give Capsule a whirl and see how it can get you all the customer insights you could ever want.