Customer Relations beyond Quantitative Analysis

How do you measure a business' relationship with your customers? There are those who measure this relationship on a purely quantitative basis like the number of print business cards that were distributed in a networking event or the number of complaints. This approach suggests that everything there is to measure can be evaluated using purely quantitative measures. Numbers define how this relationship has been established or progressing. But have businesses ever consider that beyond the figures are measurements that look at the quality of the relationship between the business and the customers?

What this means is that there should be at least some part of the evaluation that is the basis on the quality of the relationship, that which requires judgment and interpretation because these are what make it necessary and optimal for the customer to be an actual part of the business. If the business will evaluate on purely quantitative measures then the business will have a shallow rather than deep relationship with them.

This runs contrary to prevailing view of customer understanding. Quantitative customer analysis with a large statistically significant sample and multiple choice questions that paves the way for quantifying responses of the answers is considered rigorous. Meanwhile, qualitative customers' evaluation that uses small sample using conversational and observational approaches is considered by many to be less formal and at best inaccurate.

The best way to measure a relationship therefore is one that combines both quantitative and qualitative approaches. The numbers will give you why the customer arrived at a particular purchase decision or a rating of your after sales service but it would not give you why the customer picked that particular product or arrived at the decision to purchase. Qualitative research enables us to delve much more deeply into the relationship between the business and its product or service and their customers. The rigorous quantitative research is balanced by a qualitative approach that let the customers use their own voice.

The quality and depth of the relationship with the customer is based not only on a ranking scale but also through the interpretation of the business' eyes and ears. This is the only way of truly understanding the relationship that is beyond the quantity of business card printing. Having established this, if you want a deeper relationship with your customers, don't spend your time analyzing why they ticked 3 or 4 in a scale of 10. Instead, know and understand their sentiments when they arrived at a particular decision point.