What’s Customer Research and How Teak Research's Approach

In today’s experience-driven landscape, understanding customers is no longer just a marketing activity. It has become the foundation of every business decision. Customer expectations shape how products are designed to offer a meaningful customer experience. 

Customer research is the process of collecting, analysing, and interpreting data about customers’ behaviours, motivations, needs, and real-life contexts. It enables organisations to make strategic decisions based on how customers actually think and behave—not assumptions.

Whether launching a new product or adjusting an existing service, customer research helps businesses understand:

• why customers make certain decisions
• what they truly need
• where real pain points occur
• what should be prioritised to increase success

Unlike numerical data or broad market trends, customer research focuses on the underlying reasons behind behaviour—something market research often cannot capture on its own.

What It Focuses On

Market Research

Market size, growth trends, competitive landscape, macro-level consumer behavior, demographic profiles (age, income, occupation), commonly used channels, average price ranges, and overall expectations within the broader market.

Customer Research

Real behaviors in actual usage contexts, deeper motivations, underlying decision drivers, emotional responses, pre-during-post usage experiences, unspoken obstacles, and unmet needs that customers cannot fully articulate.

Customer Research becomes the key mechanism that helps organizations uncover market white spaces that competitors have yet to address.

Core Principles Table of Customer Service 

Understanding customers in real-life context

- Field observation, contextual inquiry, real-world usage studies

- Customers do not make decisions in controlled environments. Observing real behaviour reveals barriers, social influences, and environmental factors they cannot articulate in surveys or research labs.

Capturing both rational and emotional factors

- In-depth interviews, non-directive conversations, observation of tone, hesitation, and emotional cues

- Decisions are shaped by emotions such as confidence, fear, familiarity, and uncertainty, not just logic. Understanding these emotional layers enables more accurate communication and experience design.

Interpreting beyond stated answers

- Interpretive analysis, connecting behaviour with motivations and context

-  Answers are raw data. Insights emerge only when researchers interpret meaning, uncover unmet needs, and identify opportunities that customers themselves cannot express directly.

1. Consumer behaviour is more complex and less predictable

Consumers receive information from multiple channels—reviews, social media, online communities, and friends—making decision-making non-linear. Customer research helps organisations map the actual path to purchase.

2. Reduces risk from incorrect assumptions

Many organisations develop products based on internal assumptions rather than customer reality. Customer research verifies ideas early, preventing costly misaligned investments.

3. Opens new areas for innovation

Customer insights uncover:

• overlooked customer groups
• unmet needs
• pain points customers feel forced to “tolerate”

These become foundations for new products, services, and experiences.

1. In-Depth Interviews (IDIs)

Used to explore motivations, expectations, and past experiences. Interviews allow adaptive questioning, revealing deeper reasoning behind choices.

2. Behaviour Observation & Shadowing 

Studies how customers interact with products, packaging, apps, or service environments. This method uncovers micro-frictions and behavioural shortcuts that surveys cannot detect.

3. Field Study / Ethnography

Best for products embedded in daily routines—home, health, mobility. Researchers immerse in actual environments to understand the relationships between customer, product, and context.

4. Quantitative Validation (Surveys & Analytics)

After qualitative insights reveal hypotheses, quantitative data verifies whether those insights represent only a niche or reflect a broader trend across segments.

5. Diary Studies

Customers record behaviour and emotions over time. Useful for longitudinal experiences such as healthcare routines, spending behaviour, or mobile app usage.

1. Reveals customers’ true needs

Thai customers often avoid direct criticism. Deep research reveals unspoken concerns, confidence issues, or hidden frustrations that shape decisions.

2. Improves product and service usability

Real-world observation shows:

• features customers avoid
• steps they skip due to complexity
• mismatches between design intent and real usage

These insights enable design teams to simplify and enhance usability.

3. Reduces risk in high-investment projects 

Customer research clarifies which ideas should be prioritised, modified, or paused—lowering strategic risk early. 

4. Identifies new market opportunities

Insights often reveal:

• emerging user groups
• new usage contexts
• niche but high-value needs

Brands that engage in ongoing customer research typically discover growth opportunities faster.

5. Enhances the end-to-end customer experience 

Customer journeys begin long before the brand interaction. Research uncovers friction points and emotional triggers across every stage of the journey.

6. Creates sustainable competitive advantage

Deep human understanding becomes strategic capital—something competitors cannot copy easily.

7. Aligns internal teams around a shared customer vision

Customer research unifies marketing, sales, product, and leadership by giving them the same clear understanding of who the customer truly is.

In a rapidly changing market, success is not determined by having the most data—but by having the right understanding of what that data means.

Teak Research approaches customer research with a human-centered lens. We focus on real behaviour, underlying motivations, and the cultural and emotional contexts that shape decisions. Our methodology combines:

• anthropological research
• design thinking
• immersive fieldwork
• interpretive insight analysis

This enables organisations to move beyond assumptions and design products, services, or experiences that truly align with customer reality.

Over time, customer research becomes a strategic compass—guiding growth, revealing opportunities, and grounding every decision in real human insight.