How to think like your customers
Lockdown makes it harder to understand their motives, but there are ways of getting close to people despite social distancing.
Ethnographer Chloe Evans argues for the importance of ‘being there’ to really understand a person’s behaviour. It’s true that sharing space with a customer - viewing their habits and watching their behaviours - can be the most insightful way to do research.
This is because attitudes differ from behaviours. In other words, what people tell you they do can often be different from what they actually do.
For example, someone might tell you that they’re an extremely healthy eater, but it’s not until you accompany them on their weekly food shop that you realise they stock up on sweets and chocolate for ‘girls night on Friday'.
