Phil Rubin

Observing Consumers Beats Listening to Them

February 19, 2010

FROM RETAILWIRE:
Nate Bolt, co-founder and chief executive of user research firm Bolt Peters, argues that while tech entrepreneurs are encouraged to listen to potential customers, observing is a much better tool to see whether a new product will succeed in the market. What are the merits of observation versus listening in testing new products?      [more...]

There's a reason that people read the Daily Racing Form (which has been published since 1894!) when they bet on horses: past behavior is a great and typically the best predictor of future behavior.

Observing behavior can take many forms but in our world there is an abundance of behavioral data (transactional, online, etc.) that leads to the information that drives valuable insights. Of course this applies to services like retail and telecom as much as it applies to products like consumer electronics. The challenge is always to make the data usable.

There are times where observing behavior is impossible without actually putting something in (the real) market. Loyalty programs are prime examples and for this reason, we always recommend piloting live tests (even through loyalty promotions or scaled down programs) versus simply relying on conventional research.

The world, and especially marketing, needs more fact-based evidence.