Editor’s note: Nick Andrus, aka the Maniacal Marketer, is partner at Insight Direction, a Chicago consulting firm.

You know what really makes me mad? Marketers who laugh at their customers while attending focus groups.

LOL. No, it’s not just an instant messaging term or something that occurs at open-mike night at the local comedy club. It’s also what often happens when clients and their agency account teams attend focus groups together. After settling into the viewing room and sorting the red peanut M&Ms from the green and yellow ones the team is ready for an evening of qualitative research. There’s a refrigerator nearby filled with beer, soft drinks, water and wine and a stack of menus to peruse and order dinner from. And, with any luck, they’ve picked some fun, exciting cities to conduct the groups and the night is young. All’s right with the world.

Enter the customers

And what’s the very first comment that you hear? “Take a look at the gut on that guy. Betcha he’s the first one to reach for a cookie.” (LOL) “Is that a bowling shirt that guy is wearing or does he just shop at a bowling alley for his clothes.” (LOL)

Am I wrong or are these not the people that you left the office, traveled to some distant city and paid to listen to? Aren’t these the very same people that we as marketers are supposed to covet and cherish? So what’s going on here, some client agency bonding or a serious attempt to gain insight into why customers buy or don’t buy your products? What started out as legitimate effort to search for answers has quickly deteriorated into a joke fest.

The group begins

After some brief preliminaries the session begins in earnest with the moderator attempting to do the very best job possible. She tracks through the session vigilantly, following the pre-approved moderator’s guide and diverting from it when something interesting is raised by a group member. But even she is not immune to the barbs of the group behind the mirror.

Between conversations and the occasional joke some listening actually begins to take place. “What did that guy say about our product? It wasn’t meant to be used that way. Is he nuts or what?”  “We don’t have distribution at Wal-Mart; he couldn’t have bought it there.” “Our product doesn’t have that feature. What product is she talking about?” As the participants’ responses are derided and discarded real listening wanes and it’s back to the Beer Nuts and jokes.

Having spent 90 minutes moderating the group the moderator takes a break, enters the viewing room and asks the team if they have any additional questions or areas they would like explored. “No. Let them go,” is too often the response.

Wasted opportunities

Thinking back to the group there were undoubtedly many wasted opportunities to gain additional insight from the respondents instead of deriding their responses. For example, why was that one group member using the product in a way it was never intended to be used? What need was he trying to fulfill? Could a new product be developed to better fill that need? Why did the one respondent think that they bought the product at Wal-Mart? Is Wal-Mart a natural or expected distribution channel for this type of product? Would they like to see the product carried at Wal-Mart? Why or why not? Or how about that feature that the one customer thought your product had…is this another opportunity to explore for a new product idea or a significant line extension?

Laugh out loud

So, who has the last laugh in the above scenario? Unfortunately, nobody does. The well-intended moderator has done her best to deliver a quality product and will put hours of work into a final report that may not be seen as valuable to the client. The client and the agency have missed numerous opportunities to gain important insights into their customers’ behavior. And the customer may not see that new product that would better fulfill their needs for many years to come.

Next time, try this alternative approach:

  • View each opportunity you get to talk to and listen to you customers as gold.
  • Listen to them with an open mind.
  • Leave your personal theories and opinions in the parking lot. When you hear something that doesn’t fit them, make sure that it’s probed extensively by the moderator. You just may be wrong, you know.
  • Thoroughly debrief after each and every group. Modify the guide to incorporate new learning or to determine just how pervasive an opinion might be.

The customer is gold. Don’t forget it. Treat them with respect and covet their loyalty and you’ll have the last laugh for sure.