When you carry out a market research you have to handle any questions, positive and sometimes negative feedback. Of course, hearing negative impressions regarding your innovation is never easy and a lot of businesses make the mistake of not knowing how to deal with negative feedback. After years of experience, here at UMI we’ve come to realize that negative feedback can easily be turned into positive insights for your innovation.
#1 Creating value with information
You have to see negative feedback as informative. Whether it is for B2C or B2B purpose, the same rule applies.
If you have to face negative feedback from surveyed professionals regarding your project don’t take it as a personal attack. They are not judging you, but your product and its specificity.
Negative comments have real value only if they are perfectly objective. Remember that you have to survey qualified professionals to carry out an effective market research. That means that you can’t put in doubt their impartiality. Therefore, their feedback is absolutely reliable. See this as a challenge and openly accept the information as a solution.
#2 Going further with market research
No doubt, you are an expert in your sector, you know your project like the back of your hand and you already more or less know what you are doing. Negative feedback can help you do what it takes to get to the top of your game. Intuitively, positive feedback merely tells you what you already know while negative feedback offers the key to getting ahead. Indeed it tells you where you need to spend your effort, and offers insight into how you might improve. Plus, it gives you fresh ideas, new specificities and help you identify opportunities that you might otherwise not have noticed.
#3 Improve your understanding of the market
With these negative insights, you can get to the root of the problem regarding technical but also marketing challenges. Indeed, it gives you the clue of what the market didn’t like about your innovation.
- you know what to look out for in the next product
- you are given a detailed blueprint of what your targeted customer wants/needs.
Then you will have rich data to make informed decisions and to better position you market.
#4 Saved by the bell
Would you prefer to know more about the actions you take that are effective, or about the actions you take that are not? If a big majority of qualified professionals tells you that your innovation won’t be a success, they actually give you a big opportunity. Imagine you plan to spend years and years and invest a lot of money in a project, and all the surveyed professionals tell you that it won’t fit in any market.
You have tow choices:
- Go all-out and keep on this same path hoping the future takes care of itself.
- Consider this negative feedback and act in order to rethink your product and its market potential.
Your company can use these insights to refine your products before you commit to expensive production costs.
Conclusion
If you want to grasp a market research in a more positive manner, consider negative feedback like it just might give you the information you need to take your project to the next level. So remember to look on the bright side of things to turn your negative comments into positive value.
