Power of fieldwork: Understanding customers starts from the trenches
We’re often seduced by data. Charts, dashboards, surveys and analytics seem like the ultimate way to understand customers.
But data alone won’t give you the full picture. They lack context, can be incomplete or biased and don’t explain the ‘why’ behind behaviors.
Human judgment and interpretation are essential to turn raw data into meaningful insights and decisions.
To truly grasp your customers’ nuances, you need to meet them where they are—whether in a store, on a livestream or deep in a social media thread.
Recent public sector fieldwork proves this powerfully. Researchers uncovered “ghost” flood control projects—initiatives that existed only on paper but never reached communities. While official reports showed budgets and timelines, onsite visits revealed empty lots and unmet promises. Fieldwork exposed what data had concealed, reminding us why being on the ground matters.
But fieldwork requires strategy. We need to expand how we define it, balance it with analytics and build it into daily business rhythms.
Whether you’re an entrepreneur, a product lead or a data-savvy marketer, immersing yourself in your customers’ real-world experiences is essential. When done well, fieldwork generates not just insights but also empathy. You uncover what customers want, why they want it and the obstacles they face.
However, fieldwork isn’t easy to scale. It’s time-consuming, often informal and when left solely to top leadership, it risks being deprioritized.
How to use fieldwork
Fieldwork is best for generating hypotheses and spotting unexpected behaviors. Then, data analytics help validate and scale those insights. This hybrid model balances qualitative richness with quantitative rigor, and that’s where your strategic edge lies.
To be effective, fieldwork must extend beyond executives. Get designers, marketers, operations and product managers into the real or digital field. Let them witness customer behavior firsthand and loop those insights into strategy.
Learning shouldn’t be siloed; it should be institutionalized. Create repeatable systems that involve different departments. Fieldwork should be a business process, not a personality trait.
The Ivory Tower Fallacy: Why research alone isn’t enough
Research tracks trends and quantifies behavior, but it’s often stripped of context. It’s packaged for speed, not depth.
Spreadsheets might show high cart abandonment, but only observation explains why: confusing checkouts, hidden promo codes or trust gaps.
Great artists don’t paint from descriptions; they paint from reality. Monet didn’t rely on memory. Da Vinci didn’t use just textbooks. They observed deeply and repeatedly.
In business, relying solely on secondhand research is like painting from a postcard. You miss nuance. You risk flawed strategies.
Build a culture of validation. Treat data as a starting point, not a conclusion. Every insight, no matter how “clean” it looks, should pass the “seen it myself” test before becoming policy.
Samuel Po, the CEO who stays grounded
Samuel Po, CEO of JS Unitrade, maker of EQ diapers and Charmee sanitary protection, is known for his hands-on approach. While many CEOs stay in boardrooms, Samuel regularly visits stores, talks to retailers and observes how products are stocked, sold and bought. As he puts it: “If you’re not in the field, you’re not in touch with what’s going on. Your perspective is limited.”
This market pulse allows him to make grounded, agile decisions—one reason why JS Unitrade competes successfully against global giants.
Redefining the “field” in a digital-first world
Today, much customer interaction happens online. If you’re in SaaS (software as a service), fintech or e-commerce business, your “store” is your homepage. Your “sales floor” is a chatbot and your community might be on TikTok or Reddit.
Embrace digital ethnography. Study user behavior through session replays, community threads, chat transcripts and support tickets. Your customers are speaking; you just need to listen in the right places.
Digital fieldwork isn’t second-class; it’s the new front line.
Behavior as cultural expression
Marketing anthropologist Chiqui Escareal-Go reminds us that anthropology teaches insight that comes not just from what people say, but how they live.
People may not verbalize pain points, but behavior always tells a story.
In anthropology, behavior reflects cultural norms, values and unspoken needs. Observing it in context reveals invisible friction points. Each anomaly is a signal, not just noise.
Train teams to spot nonverbal feedback, online or offline. Combine observation with structured interviews. Capture moments of truth that surveys often miss.
Observation has limits
Fieldwork is powerful but not infallible. It’s filtered through your own lens. You may overinterpret, fall into confirmation bias or overlook other explanations.
Use structured tools like Jobs to Be Done, customer journey maps or behavioral archetyping to guide and de-bias observations. Better yet, triangulate what you see with usage data, A/B tests and customer feedback.
Insights usually happen at the intersection of what customers say, what they do and what they can’t articulate but demonstrate.
Customers aren’t rational; they’re human
We like to believe customers make logical decisions. But choices are often shaped by emotion, habit, inertia and context. There are forces that data often miss, and may misinterpret as loyalty.
Fieldwork helps uncover whether customers are truly loyal or just buying out of routine, whether they value service or just avoid switching hassles.
Don’t use fieldwork just to confirm what you think you know. Use it to challenge your assumptions. Seek disconfirming evidence. That’s how you avoid echo chambers and stay in tune with evolving customer realities.
What you can do next
You don’t need a massive transformation to start applying fieldwork thinking. Just commit to real-world listening.
1. Start small, but systematically: One store visit, three interviews and five digital session reviews a month can spark breakthroughs. Make it a habit.
2. Leverage the front lines: Sales representatives, service agents and social media managers are close to customers. Train them to spot and surface insights and new ideas.
3. Create a shared insight hub: Don’t let fieldwork live in notebooks or one-off reports. Build a central repository of stories and observations. Over time, this becomes a well of context-rich insight.
4. Balance intuition with instrumentation: Feed field insights into your analytics and vice versa. The goal is insight at scale, not anecdote overload. Let observation and data work together.
Make fieldwork a mindset, not a moment
Fieldwork isn’t a side project or executive flex. It’s a cultural habit that keeps your business human, curious and customer-first.
Business isn’t a game of perfect information. It’s continuous learning. Some of the best insights come from listening, observing and being present, wherever your customers are.
Step out. Physically or digitally. Listen with intention. Observe without filters. Ask better questions.
Let your business grow not just with data, but with understanding.
