If a customer walks out of your store without buying, looking at the security camera footage won’t tell you why. You can analyze the video (Data) all day, but you will never know if they left because the price was too high, or because the music was too loud.
To find out, you have to run out to the parking lot and ask them.
In the corporate world, we rely heavily on ‘Security Camera’ data—web tracking, AI analysis, and big spreadsheets. These tools are excellent at telling us what happened. But they are terrible at telling us why.
Here is why the most profitable companies still invest in human conversations, and how you can use them to fix your pricing strategy.
AI is a Mirror, Not a Window. AI can only tell you what customers have said in the past. It cannot tell you what they would pay for a new, innovative product. That requires a human “Store Owner” intuition.
The store owner talked to people – he or she never missed the value of human conversation.
How to make qualitative interviews worth the effort
Qualitative Interviews done by a good interviewer who makes the interviewees talk in the right direction gives direct access to the thoughts of our clients and target groups. This includes thoughts which do not exist in a written language.
The Cost of Not Knowing
Compare the 300 € interview cost to the cost of launching a product with the wrong price. “Is it expensive to pay 300 € to find out your customers would have paid 20% more? No. That 300 € just made you 20.000 €.
This additional publicity pays for a part of the survey. The other one is additional sales following an improved strategy.
Stupid interviewers are a no-go
For best quality of interviews the interviewer has to dive into the world of the interviewed person. The interviewer has to direct the interview and add questions if necessary. This requires a lot of experience and knowledge for the interviewer. Hiring a random person without knowledge is the first step to disaster. Less experienced interviewers need the first interviews in a project for training, experienced interviewers do not need that. They can relate to previous experiences
References
This article is based on about 20 years experience with qualitative interviews and the usage of some form of artificial intelligence since 1992.
