The Importance of Customer Motivation
How would your strategy change if you found out your customers were using your dating app to combat isolation and loneliness, rather than to find a life partner? This nuance in motivation can significantly impact your product look and feel, product line expansions, partnerships you create, target audience, marketing message and tone, and more.
Knowing why your customers use your product feels very… obvious. But it’s not always easy. Sometimes we have a strong feeling that a product ‘should’ do one thing – even when our customers are saying another thing. Or we might not be aware how our customers are actually using the product. Or we might be asking the wrong questions.
Enter: Conversational Surveys.
A conversational survey is a short survey focused on open-ended questions. Each question allows respondents to answer in their own words using chat or text. We ask follow-up questions in real time, using LLMs to probe for more detail. And it’s this ability to further probe on a response that is absolutely game-changing. It creates a personalized survey, tailored to the unique responses of the individual, ultimately leading to better responses. (And before you ask, “can’t I just do qualitative interviews?” Of course you can! But try doing that at scale or when you need to represent multiple audiences and markets…)
By asking targeted open ends with probes, we have better survey data, we capture more nuanced human experiences, and we find the answers to questions we may not have otherwise asked.
Case Study: Dating App Insights
We recently conducted a study to understand the customer journey for dating apps. We compared a traditional quantitative survey with scaled questions to a conversational survey with open ended questions and probing follow ups. The goal of the study was to uncover a customer journey, and we did, but we also found something else.
In our conversational survey, we learned that many respondents joined the app to combat loneliness. They weren’t looking for a life partner or a casual date as the traditional quant indicated they did. The interesting part? We never asked about loneliness OR why they joined the app. 8% of respondents mentioned loneliness completely unaided. Given the intimate nature of dating experiences and the fact that this question wasn’t explicitly asked, we consider the 8% response rate to be notably significant.
This idea of loneliness emerged from the consumers’ own narrative about using the product. Here’s what we heard:
Q: Can you tell me which dating apps you have used in the past and for how long? Also, what situations led you to use dating apps in general?
“Being lonely and not having family and feeling unloved and looking for that reassurance was needed but that reassurance was never given”
Q: Think about the time when you started using Hinge. Please tell us about it like you would to a friend.
“I was lonely and looking for quality over tinder. I thought I found it with one person but he ended up screwing me over worse than anyone had ever before in my life”
Q: Why haven’t you recommended Hinge to anyone?
“Because I have very few friends and the ones I do have are in a relationship.”
Implications for Business Strategy
Again, just a slight nuance in motivation, and suddenly you’re seeing the product through an entirely different lens. How you position, build, and market a product that is meant for dating could look very different than how you position, build, and market a product that’s meant to counteract feelings of isolation.
This insight becomes a strategic cornerstone for your product positioning. Recognizing loneliness as a key driver allows you to make informed decisions about your product’s place in the market. It not only highlights the necessity of a strategic approach but also quantifies the potential opportunity.
The Future of Market Research
Many see the future of market research in synthetic audiences. We don’t. While survey ratings and rankings remain valuable (although at PSB, we’ll always recommend a two-step or choice-based approach when possible), we see conversational surveys as the future. Let the consumer narrative drive your strategy, not the % who agree with a pre-populated statement. What do you think is the future of the industry?
Questions on this approach? Reach out to [email protected]
About PSB: PSB Insights is a global insights consultancy, where we provide strategic insights to business decision makers through the integration of art and science. With a team of over 100 experienced researchers, analysts, and data scientists, PSB has a four-decade track record of translating sharp insights into strategies, innovative ideas, and practical solutions to drive customer acquisition and growth. PSB is part of WPP (NYSE: WPP).
Methodology: PSB dove deep into the world of online dating, exploring the multifaceted journeys users take on a popular dating app. From July 17th to July 20th, we conducted two simultaneous online surveys, engaging n=400 app users per survey in a journey of discovery. One survey followed a traditional quantitative approach, mapping the user experience from initial awareness to finding success on the dating app. The second survey took a refreshingly open-ended approach, inviting respondents to share their unique dating app stories in their own words across different key phases.