A Fortune 100 healthcare financing company once told my team and I that they knew everything about their customers. They had surveys, focus groups, personas, and a data lake of information to prove it.
But when we dug deeper, what they called "research" was demographics and market segments. Not customer insights.
There's a difference between knowing who your customers are and understanding what they actually need.
What we discovered
We ran two workshop sessions to figure out their business context and ideate, then dove into 10 customer interviews over two weeks.
The prevailing belief inside the company was clear: customers weren't using their healthcare financing because of affordability concerns. They thought people wanted longer payment terms or were avoiding services entirely because of costs.
Their data supported this theory. Survey responses about price sensitivity. Focus group discussions about payment preferences. Personas that highlighted budget constraints.
But that wasn't it at all.
Like every time customers are actually talked to, we learned something fundamental. Customers weren't hesitating because of costs. They didn't know where to begin. It was uncertainty, not affordability.
I remember one of the interviews — a woman was waiting in her car for the paycheck casher to open, wondering if we'd agree to pay $15 or $50. You can't learn that from surveys or spreadsheets.
Tired of building features based on assumptions? Let's get your team talking to real customers again
The gap nobody saw coming
Market research had told them who their customers were - demographics, income levels, geographic distribution. All accurate. All useful for targeting and segmentation.
But none of it revealed why customers hesitated at the moment of decision. The surveys asked about affordability because that's what the company assumed mattered. The focus groups discussed payment terms because that's what seemed logical.
Real customer conversations revealed the actual barrier: process confusion. Customers didn't understand when payments would start, how approval worked, or what would happen if their situation changed.
Something else to consider
“Your assumptions are not facts. Your opinions are not user needs. Your preferences are not user goals.”
User research expert Hall puts it perfectly: "Your assumptions are not facts. Your opinions are not user needs. Your preferences are not user goals." The healthcare financing company had convinced themselves their internal logic reflected customer reality. They built research to validate what they already believed rather than discover what customers actually experienced.
This is the trap most teams fall into. We mistake our expertise about how our product works with insight about why customers make decisions. The $2M opportunity was hiding because the company was looking through their own lens instead of their customers'.
What $2M looks like
With 10 conversations, we ended up streamlining their application workflow and created clear timelines. The projected impact? A 10% increase in service signups — that would've been about $2M retained annually.
Time invested: About 20 hours of interviews and analysis. Potential annual return: $2M in additional revenue. All from conversations that took less than two days total.
If a Fortune 100 company with massive budgets and dedicated research teams can be this wrong about their customers, what does that say about smaller teams operating on assumptions?
The difference that matters
Subject matter expertise tells you how your product works. Market research tells you who might buy it. But customer insights tell you why they make the decisions they do in the moment that matters most.
You can't get that from demographic data or survey responses. You get it from watching how people actually work, listening to their language, understanding their real context.
What truths might just five (5) focused customer conversations unlock for your business each month? It's a small investment with potentially massive returns.
Until next time,
Skipper Chong Warson
Making product strategy and design work more human — and impactful
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