Sometimes five conversations tell you something a dashboard can't

I love data. I feel I need to say that before I sound like I’m about to suggest we abandon analytics and make all business decisions by sitting in a café watching people.

I’m not.

But I do think we have reached a slightly strange point where businesses can have extraordinary amounts of customer data and still be remarkably disconnected from customers.

You can know conversion rates, basket size, churn, acquisition source, frequency, average order value and approximately 900 other things.

And still not really know why Sarah stopped buying.

A dashboard might tell me customers are abandoning at a particular stage. Brilliant. That gives me somewhere to look.

Then I want to see what happens.

Talk to them. Watch them. Ask what they thought was going to happen. Ask what they expected. Find out what made them hesitate.

Sometimes one person says something and you think, “Huh.”

Then another says it slightly differently.

By person five, there is a thread.

That doesn't make five people statistically representative of your entire market. Please don't put “five customers said it” into the investment case as proof of a £50m opportunity.

It gives you a hypothesis.

Then you can use the data to see whether it holds.

I think the really interesting work lives between the two. Numbers show you where something is happening. Humans help you understand what might be underneath it.

I don't want less data.

I want more humanity around it.