Making your small-business research actionable.

• Author: Neckopulos, Jim
• Position: BUSINESS-CUSTOMER ACQUISITION

SURVEYS, FOCUS GROUPS AND OTHER PRIMARY RESEARCH have an important role to play in helping organizations improve their customer experience and drive growth in the small-business market. However, to generate meaningful output, these research approaches or methods need to be actionable. Taking the right approach to primary research can greatly increase the likelihood that it will provide actionable insights and meaningful benefits.

Five factors are critical to making this happen:

1. Engage with internal stakeholders early and often.

   When designing research, understanding the goals, priorities and issues of the users of that research is critical. Creating a survey in line with internal stakeholders' needs and understanding how they want to use it will instill early buy-in.

   Reviewing preliminary findings with key stakeholders and working with them to define implications is also important. For instance, if stakeholders share that there is no additional capacity in their technology budget, the research should focus on identifying other areas of the business that might be improved to address their problem or opportunity.

2. Identify clearly the key issue and desired outcome.

   Conducting research without first determining its purpose or goals reduces the likelihood that the findings will be actionable. Therefore, it is important to be clear about the problem to be addressed or the potential opportunity. Similarly, agree on the definition of success at the outset of the research; doing so helps to make sure the results provide specific understanding of the appropriate actions to take. For example, if a bank's problem is losing business deposits to competitors, a definition of success for research might be "identifying the underlying reasons for why customers are leaving and the specific actions the bank can take to retain and grow customers' deposits."

3. Start with actionable hypotheses and design a survey that will validate them.

   Before designing any research, it is important to think about which insights could help the bank address its problem or opportunity most effectively. By starting with actionable hypotheses--what you think the answers might be--research questions can be designed to confirm or invalidate those hypotheses. As a result, research findings will be clear and actionable. Referencing the example above, researchers could hypothesize that "customers are moving their deposits because other banks are willing to grant them lines of...