Editor's note: Andrew Wilson is an account executive at Applied Marketing Science Inc., a Waltham, Mass., research and consulting firm. This article appeared in the April 25, 2011, edition of Quirk's e-newsletter.

The best way to understand your customers' wants and needs is to have engaging conversations with them. But problems arise when deciding who you should speak with to ensure you've collected the entire universe of customer wants and needs. Here are a few ways to conduct thorough and efficient research with consumers without exhausting company resources.

Who to speak with 

For many, answering the question of who to speak with is overwhelming and they find themselves at an impasse before they've even started their investigation. Why does this happen? Because most people think of collecting wants and needs as a quantitative research problem or as a segmentation exercise where they assume that every user type has its own unique set of needs. They think about every conceivable way customers might be subdivided (e.g., by age, region, gender, income, products used, level of technical sophistication, etc.). When all is said and done, they are left thinking they need to conduct in-depth interviews with nearly 100 customers (i.e., five to 10 interviews for each customer type), which can be prohibitively expensive and time-consuming. Most recognize that this is overkill but don't know of a better approach.

Fortunately, conducting 100 in-depth interviews isn't necessary. In nearly every industry, the universe of customer wants and needs can be collected with about 20 to 40 one-on-one in-depth interviews. How is this possible? Most customers have remarkably similar needs; they simply prioritize them differently. Consider the smartphone market, one of the most segmented markets that exists, with a myriad of different customer types (e.g., business users, teenagers, mothers, audiophiles, etc.). All of these users have many common needs relating to a phone's ability to make and receive phone calls and manage contacts. However, if you asked a business user and a teenager how important it is to be able to organize their contacts, you're likely to find that business users place more importance on this need than do teenagers. The same dynamic typically holds true across the entire universe of needs - where different customer types have the same needs but place varying levels of importance on each of them. This makes the task of collecting the universe of customer wants and needs significantly more manageable. 

Unique needs exist

Typically, we find that unique needs exist across two dimensions: 1) How people use the product or service and 2) their level of experience in using the product or service. Consider the smartphone market once again. There are likely to be different needs associated with each of the tasks for which they're using their smartphone: as a phone, a Web browser, a media player, a contact manager, an e-mail device, a camera, a calendar or a GPS device. Also, new users are likely to have a unique set of needs that are associated with learning how to use a product or service. Conversely, more-experienced users are often focused on getting more functionality and use out of a product or service in ways that new users can't envision. 

Collect the universe

Imagine a smartphone manufacturer seeks to collect the universe of wants and needs for its customers. To be sure that it has covered the bases, it should aim to speak with at least five new users and five experienced users within each smartphone device category (i.e., five new e-mail users, five experienced media player users, five new camera users, etc.). 

However, it isn't necessary to speak with 80 different respondents because most people use their smartphones for more than just a single purpose. For instance, a single respondent may be able to discuss their experiences using his/her smartphone as an experienced phone user, a new Web browser user, an experienced media player user and so on. By recruiting individuals who can represent multiple uses, the manufacturer can be sure it has spoken to the "right" 30 people - a cross-section of people who can provide a complete understanding of smartphone customers' wants and needs. 

Finally, when recruiting respondents, you shouldn't just talk to your best customers or even limit it to just your current customers. These people typically already like you and are often less likely to provide you with information you don't already know. Make sure that the group of 30 you speak with consists of past customers and your competitors' customers as well. 

More power than ever

With today's media, customers have more power than ever. If they're unhappy, they won't simply stop buying your products and services; they'll bash you for not listening and make sure their social networks are aware of your apathy. Most organizations know this but many are so overwhelmed by the task of gathering their customers' wants and needs that they never begin the process. As with many things in life, taking the first step is often the most difficult and it is no different when it comes to gathering customer wants and needs. However, the task is more doable than most believe when you structure and simplify the process of identifying who to speak with.