Every product company needs to do research

Product research is no longer a heavyweight process that takes place in labs, with whiteboards and clipboards, which takes months to produce results.

Research can be quick and scrappy while still producing valuable results that guide you on what to build next. Of course we rely heavily on Intercom for our research using it to identify the relevant customers to provide feedback, ask targeted questions and send out surveys. We also use a range of traditional research tactics outside of the product, such as remote usability testing and café studies.

Research is a core part of our product team, working horizontally across all the teams that own the different parts of the product. We strongly believe everyone who builds products should be constantly soliciting feedback from their customers.

Here’s a recent talk I gave with a brief overview of how we do research at Intercom.