To deliver insights, why?-questions are needed
For years, marketeers have been asking for more relevant market research. Research that delivers insights instead of mere information. This calls for educating and training researchers to make a proper problem analysis resulting in research questions that can really support decisions to be taken by marketers, including one or more why-questions. If market researchers do not succeed in this task, this will be even more taken over by other parties.
Erik de Kort - July 2018
Erik de Kort - July 2018
In my previous blog I pointed out that the main difference between delivering information and delivering insights is the relevance of the information. In other words, whether or not information is useful in the light of the management problem of the problem owner. Relevance is achieved by doing a solid problem analysis by means of which researchers gain a thorough understanding of the challenge of the problem owner and the decisions that he/she has to take. Market researchers are then able to supply the relevant arguments for those decisions.
The problem analysis will result in relevant and measurable research questions which form the base for the research design and the execution. A common breakdown of types of research questions is:
An explanatory research question can also be seen as a Why-question. It explains why a situation is as it is, why people behave as they do or why people think as they do. Answering this type of question often results in real insights. To give useful recommendations about what decisions to take it is simply not enough to merely describe a market situation or behaviour, without at least giving a clue about the why.
A good example of this is the frequently used Net Promoter Score (NPS) question. A descriptive question, useful to describe an existing situation or, even better a development in time. But the answers to this question will not result in a new insight, without follow up questions about the why.
Just knowing that your NPS = +25 is not very valuable, unless you know more. Who are the promotors and the detractors? Why are they promoters? Why do the detractors say they don’t recommend your company? What products or services are they buying? Etc.. Answers to these questions will not only help you to understand why your NPS is +25, but also what you can do to improve it further. And knowing that is after all the whole point of conducting an NPS study in the first place.
But this is also the case in many other research projects. Check the most recent research projects in which you were involved on the presence of why questions and you will probably see that there are no or hardly any. And did the results of the project really help the problem owner to take better decisions?
The why-question is the most difficult one to answer especially when we want to explain human behaviour. Simply, because decisions by humans are partly taken in the unconscious part of the brain and the unconscious explanations differ between individuals. Yes, difficult but not impossible to find at least patterns of explanation at individual or group level. The tools are available.
The problem analysis will result in relevant and measurable research questions which form the base for the research design and the execution. A common breakdown of types of research questions is:
- Exploratory: not much is known about the situation at hand, no theoretical framework is available. Often qualitative research is used
- Descriptive: describe the characteristics of persons, events or situations
- Explanatory or causal: test whether or not one variable causes another to change.
An explanatory research question can also be seen as a Why-question. It explains why a situation is as it is, why people behave as they do or why people think as they do. Answering this type of question often results in real insights. To give useful recommendations about what decisions to take it is simply not enough to merely describe a market situation or behaviour, without at least giving a clue about the why.
A good example of this is the frequently used Net Promoter Score (NPS) question. A descriptive question, useful to describe an existing situation or, even better a development in time. But the answers to this question will not result in a new insight, without follow up questions about the why.
Just knowing that your NPS = +25 is not very valuable, unless you know more. Who are the promotors and the detractors? Why are they promoters? Why do the detractors say they don’t recommend your company? What products or services are they buying? Etc.. Answers to these questions will not only help you to understand why your NPS is +25, but also what you can do to improve it further. And knowing that is after all the whole point of conducting an NPS study in the first place.
But this is also the case in many other research projects. Check the most recent research projects in which you were involved on the presence of why questions and you will probably see that there are no or hardly any. And did the results of the project really help the problem owner to take better decisions?
The why-question is the most difficult one to answer especially when we want to explain human behaviour. Simply, because decisions by humans are partly taken in the unconscious part of the brain and the unconscious explanations differ between individuals. Yes, difficult but not impossible to find at least patterns of explanation at individual or group level. The tools are available.
