Mistake 1: Who Needs Research?
Let's be honest. The client's task is to get a working product in the shortest time and with an optimal budget. That's just fair. Furthermore, clients often know precisely what they want, relying on their industry knowledge and competitor expertise. So, they present their vision to the contractor, who, eager to fulfill the request, takes this vision as a guide for action. Subsequently, both parties form a brief, outlining the project's objectives — essentially, a brief based on assumptions — and proceed with their work accordingly.
In an ideal scenario, the client's assessment of the situation is generally correct, and the studio is experienced enough to provide the expected outcome. Fueled by optimism on both sides, the project proceeds smoothly along the intended tracks. However, sooner or later the tracks suddenly come to an end…
What's wrong with this picture?
Let’s face it. At the beginning of a project, no one knows what the end product should look like to be successful. We all may have certain hypotheses and a basic understanding of what's good and what's bad, but relying entirely on this is just naive.
Example: A client is experiencing poor sales on their website. They approach a studio with a hypothesis that the issue lies in small, inconspicuous buttons. The studio, on the other hand, suspects that the website has an inherently incorrect navigation system. After creating a new one, they decided to redesign the website's pages, which took three months. In the end, the new website performs even worse than the old one. Reverting the changes, the client started an investigation with our team – and we discovered that the real issue with the website was the lack of proper copywriting. Fixing this problem could have been done in a week.
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To gain the real insights time must be dedicated to research. A project without this process is as effective as driving blindfolded. At best, you know the direction, but any obstacle can put an end to your efforts.
Why does this happen
Research is ungrateful, time-consuming, and doesn't yield tangible results. Clients rightly believe that they understand their business, and they carry this confidence into their project vision and objectives. The idea of spending time and money allowing the contractor to understand what's already perfectly clear to them seems dubious. Especially when the project is urgent.
On the agency's side, the situation is also uncomfortable. Even if a company knows how and why to conduct a specific research, the situation is still complicated. Allocating time and budget for research means consciously depriving oneself of the competitive advantage of a lower price — something many firms cannot afford.
What to do about it
The whole research situation is not straightforward, and there's no one-size-fits-all solution because every case, client, and agency is different. However, in cases where the studio understands that a project requires research and the client is not willing to invest time and budget in it, it's recommended to at least express the potential risks openly.
Most of these risks are anyway on the client's side, and articulating them soberly, rather than hiding them behind a façade of optimism, is the right thing to do. If, say, the initial positioning hypothesis is incorrect, or if some communication obstacle goes unnoticed, we are talking about the risks of foregone profit that can exceed the project budget by tens or even hundreds of times. So, at least, from the perspective of such risks research looks like a reasonable insurance policy.
Additionally, it makes sense to position the results of the research correctly, based on the insights obtained, how it affected the initial project objectives, and what consequences it helped avoid. This can help build trust and convince the client of the value of what's happening.
