Asking customer research questions is easy. Getting department heads aligned is the real test.
Companies love saying they care about customers. They put it in the decks, say it in all-hands meetings and build campaigns around being “customer-first” and “customer-obsessed.”
Then someone suggests actually talking to customers and the room gets super tense.
Suddenly, there are a litany of concerns and you end up hearing lots of statements like “We already know this” and “Let’s not slow down.”
All of it is said with a sense of anxiety.
To an outside observer the vibes filling the room must seem like the result of no one knowing how to conduct customer research.
But that’s not it. People know how. Customer research methods are not hidden in a cave somewhere guarded by a dragon.
The concern and anxiety around customer research stems from the fact that it creates customer truth.
And customer truth is inconvenient to just about every department in an organization because it threatens their version of the customer and the very human craving for credibility, status and control.
Every company I’ve ever worked for or consulted with has faced this issue at some point.
I want to help folks avoid this. Because when it goes too far the business really starts paying for it.
Why Companies Hesitate When It Comes To Customer Research
The reasons always sound practical. The hesitation is about timelines, access, resources, launch dates, etc.
But those aren’t the real reasons. The hesitation is really about fear.
Customer research makes everyone shudder because it forces clarity on a topic people (often unknowingly) prefer to keep vague and fluid enough to match their priorities. And once a problem is clear, someone has to do something about it.
But staying clear of customer research to avoid uncomfortable truths does not remove risk. It just kicks it down the road. Sooner or later, reality comes knocking.
At that point leadership asks what the hell is going on and everyone has their own explanation for why “the market isn’t responding.”
But the market did respond. It responded exactly to what y’all put out based on everyone’s personal view of the customer.
What Happens When Every Team Thinks It Knows The Customer
Let’s say Company X sells a B2B platform that helps operations teams make faster decisions.
Everyone at Company X is aiming to win, but on an individual basis, every team is trying to get there by working from different versions of the same customer:
- MARKETING: They have personas from 18 months ago. They still get used because all the collateral is built around them. Changing this would require an earth mover.
- SALES: They are using anecdotes from three loud prospects and one enterprise account that somehow has become market gospel. They aren’t wrong, but they are working from what they hear most often and urgently.
- PRODUCT: They have a roadmap shaped via customer request tickets and executive drive-bys. They’re doing their best.
- CEO: They have founder-led stories from the first ten customers. Those stories helped the company get moving. They just need to be checked against the customer being sold to today.
- ENGINEERING: They know the product from tickets and building it. That’s useful, but it doesn’t show where customers are getting stuck.
Marketing runs a campaign to a customer it believes exists. Sales follows up with its own version of the buyer. Product tries to please everyone. The CEO views the customer through their founder lens. Engineering builds exactly what the plan asked for on paper.
Then the results come in and it looks about how you’d expect.
Every department was working from their own understanding of who they are targeting, which means each team was technically correct and can defend its actions.
But a basket of perspectives does not add up to one clear view of the customer.
When Customer Research Starts to Threaten Control It Becomes A Leadership Issue
Each team cares a lot about the customer. Their versions came from somewhere very real. The view is just incomplete.
Customer research can fix that. Remember, it’s not hard. There is no dragon.
But it can build a case that makes teams uncomfortable because it challenges the stories they use to make decisions and then forces them to defend themselves.
Emotions become amplified and flight-or-fight mode is activated.
In my experience, the result is flight and fight — they beeline it back to their corners with their trainers and cut-men before coming back out freshened up and ready to fight.
What teams need in this scenario cannot be found in a warm and fuzzy Harvard Business Review article on leadership.
“What teams need in this scenario cannot be found in a warm and fuzzy Harvard Business Review article on leadership.”
What they need here is not a speech on customer alignment. They need someone who can see what they are protecting and why.
Only then can leadership make the customer the main thing everyone has to answer to.
Here is an approximation of what this all looks like based on my experience and what leaders need to acknowledge to move past the problems it causes:
MARKETING: The Message is blocking Customer Truth
✅ What They’re Protecting: The approved message and looking busy.
✅ What They Say: “We already know the customer. We need to launch.”
✅ What Customer Research Does: It shows whether the message matches how customers actually think, act and buy.
⮕ What Leaders Need to Acknowledge: Marketing is not wrong to worry about timing and appearances. Once the message is approved and it’s time to move, new customer questions can put it all at risk. Leaders must acknowledge those pressures before asking marketing if their message is really going to land.
SALES: The Relationship is Blocking The Customer Truth
✅ What They’re Protecting: Access to the customer and the version of the buyer story that moves their deal forward.
✅ What They Say: “This account is sensitive. We need to be careful.”
✅ What Customer Research Does: It shows what customers are actually saying before it gets filtered down to three sentences in the CRM.
⮕ What Leaders Need To Acknowledge: Sales is not wrong to protect customer access. Relationships matter and so does their commission. Leaders must respect that before asking for access and then make it clear the goal is not to throw cold water on their deals.
PRODUCT: The Roadmap is blocking the customer truth
✅ What They’re Protecting: Feature commitments and a roadmap that already has people and budget attached to it.
✅ What They Say: “We need to keep moving.”
✅ What Customer Research Does: It separates the loud requests from real customer needs before going headfirst in the wrong direction.
⮕ What Leaders Need To Acknowledge: Product is not wrong to protect the roadmap. Attached to it is a circus of people, money and promises. If leadership wants product to question it, they have to acknowledge all they have on the line.
CEO: The Founding story is blocking the customer truth
✅ What They’re Protecting: The founding story, strength of instinct and the narrative they know.
✅ What They Say: “I know this customer.”
✅ What Customer Research Does: It checks whether the customer story that got the company where it is today still matches the customer sold to today.
⮕ What Leaders Need To Acknowledge: Founders and CEOs are not wrong to trust their instincts. Those instincts are why you have a job. Leaders can respect those instincts while still making sure the customer story is current and accurate.
Engineering: “but it works” is blocking the customer truth
✅ What They’re Protecting: The risk of a vague customer comment upending all the work the team has already committed to.
✅ What They Say: “The product already does that.”
✅ What Customer Research Does: It shows how customers actually use the product and where problems pop up.
⮕ What Leaders Need To Acknowledge: Engineering is not wrong to worry about scope creep and turning the product into a bloated mess. Leadership can respect those concerns before asking if a shift in understanding around how customers use the product could improve usability.
With these pressures and realities acknowledged the company can start changing how it views customer research.
That’s just the first step, though. The research still has to be done and still has to change the way people make decisions going forward.
How To Open Customer Research Without Starting A Turf War
“Okay,” you say. “I see the problem. So how do I address it without turning the office into a war zone?”
First, you tie customer research to something already on the table. Whatever the company is about to spend time, resources or credibility on is where the research needs to go.
Then, before asking for access or input, acknowledge the thing everyone is protecting. This is not therapy. It just keeps the research from feeling like an ambush and makes people more receptive to ideas.
Before setting up customer interviews, ask for everyone to agree on what could actually change as a result of the research.
If some of the findings contradict existing beliefs, does the marketing message or sales story change? Does the roadmap get altered? Does leadership lean less on an old story or does engineering lean more into the customer perspective?
Finally, pick the customer segment that matters most, develop the right set of questions and run the customer research.
I PROMISE — THIS GUY ISN’T REAL.
Please note this does not require you to form a company-wide committee. Please, I’m begging you — for the love of humanity — do not create a company-wide committee.
But do make sure to include those who will have to use what gets learned. This way folks can’t dismiss the findings later as someone else’s research project. If they had input, they have skin in the game.
This probably sounds like a lot of work and there are always a million other things competing for attention.
But it’s necessary if executives want to keep saying their company is truly “customer-first” and “customer-obsessed” with a straight face.
Customer Research Keeps Companies Honest
Customer research is not a threat to anyone’s job or authority.
The real threat is pretending five internal versions of the customer somehow add up to a real one and that operating this way won’t damage a company’s credibility.
When it reaches this point, leadership has to step in and help teams move toward customer truth.
Buyers do not care how or why the internal disconnect happened. They care about getting a solution to their problem.
If they have to work too hard to find out if you offer it, they know it’s time to look somewhere else.