Quantitative research is a critical component of any product management team. It can drive growth, improve retention, and provide product direction.
Many software companies make a habit of tracking the quantitative performance of their product. It’s easy enough to monitor the use of your product, the growth of the user base, customer retention, etc. This quantitative data is informative and definitely tells you what is happening in your product and your market. What quantitative data doesn’t tell you is why something is happening.
A friend of mine recently shared a story that illustrated the importance of using qualitative research. As a product manager at his company, he was seeing a trend in the data—customer acquisition was up, but so was attrition. Their customers weren’t renewing their contracts. The CEO went into a panic. My friend decided to send out a survey to the customers who didn’t renew to get more insight into what was going on. As it turned out, a part of their product was malfunctioning and not charging the customers who were up for renewal. Crisis (mostly) averted!