Customer Background Data Pitfalls

Recently we wrote an article discussing the value of collecting a great deal of customer background information. The idea is that there are often unseen relationships between products/companies and their customers, and when you limit yourself to only collecting basic background data, you may miss them.

For example, if you found that the people that liked your technology product also enjoyed reading magazines about cats: You can find marketing tactics that integrate cat-related themes. You can advertise in cat magazines. You can partner with cat companies.

That relationship may not be found if you only collecting basics like age, gender, family, etc. Collecting as much data as possible on your customers – not only on their buying habits, but their likes, dislikes, etc. – is a great way to find new avenues to explore with your business.

However, taking this route is not without its weaknesses:

Feasibility – It is not necessarily realistic to survey customers on a massive amount of possible information, hoping to find strange and unusual relationships. Surveys themselves would have to be hundreds or thousands of questions, and coming up with possible data points would be exceedingly difficult. Customer Burnout – The general rule is that surveys should be as short as possible to reduce the likelihood of customer burnout.

The more background data you try to collect with your survey, the more likely the customer is going to quit the survey before they finish. Customer Frustration – There is a belief in the survey research community that relevancy is important when it comes to creating surveys. An entire survey about things that appear on the surface to be unrelated to your company may reduce your response rate considerably.

Privacy – The more you learn about your customers, the more you are starting to invade their privacy. There are moral obligations you have to the customer, and you will always have to be walking the line between relevant and private. False Positives – When you collect a great deal of data on anything related to the customer, there is always the likelihood that you start to see relationships that may not actually be there.

All research, even with large sample sizes, can yield relationships that may not truly exist. While collecting a lot of information on your customers (including information that may not appear relevant on the surface) may be useful, that does not mean that it doesn’t have its downsides. As a researcher, you always need to evaluate and reevaluate your decisions when it comes to creating your survey, and you may find that collecting a great deal of background data on your customers isn’t possible.

Still, it is important to remember that there are relationships everywhere, and limiting yourself to pre-determined categories may not be useful for your business. Successful market researchers are able to uncover relationships outside the box, so always look for new avenues to explore with your background research. Read about the benefits of collecting customer background information .