One of the biggest misconceptions we often see organisations making is assuming that if a service is valuable, people will automatically use it.
But in reality, that isn’t always how people behave.
Over the years at FN Research, we have worked with organisations across Northern Ireland and beyond that that offer genuinely great and useful services. The need for the service exists, and awareness is often reasonably high, sometimes even the benefits are clear, but uptake still seems to fall short of expectations.
When this happens, the first reaction of senior management is often to question the service itself. Organisations internally often ask questions such as
- Do we need more advertising?
- Should we add new features?
- Is the offer still relevant?
And sometimes those questions are genuinely valid. But more often than not, the real answer lies somewhere else entirely.
For example, recently, we worked with an organisation delivering a well-designed public service. The service addressed a genuine need and awareness levels were relatively strong. Despite this, participation and uptake remained lower than expected or hoped for and the organisation wanted to fully understand the reasons why.
Instead of focusing purely on the service itself, we looked at the entire customer experience. We explored what it felt like to discover the service, learn about it, apply for it and move through the process from the user’s perspective.
This is where consumer insight becomes incredibly powerful.
We need to remember that customers don’t experience services as organisations do. Internally, teams understand the terminology, processes and systems involved. But customers see things very differently. They judge experiences based on simplicity, confidence, reassurance and effort.
What we discovered in this example was surprisingly common. There were no major problems or even a single issue causing people to abandon the process. But rather there were several small friction points throughout the customer journey.
- The language created uncertainty at key moments.
- Some stages felt more complicated than people expected.
- Users weren’t always sure what would happen next.
Individually, these issues seemed minor, but collectively, they created enough hesitation to stop some people from completing the journey.
This is often where organisations struggle.
Internal teams know their services so well that they can no longer see the experience through fresh eyes.
What feels obvious to the organisation can feel confusing to the customer and what seems like a straightforward process internally can feel daunting to a user.
Through customer journey mapping and consumer research, we identified the exact points for this organisation where people paused, hesitated or disengaged and more importantly, we understood why these were friction points.This allowed us to develop practical recommendations focused on behaviour rather than assumptions.
The recommendations were refreshingly simple.
- Clearer language throughout the process.
- A smoother customer journey.
- Better reassurance at key decision-making moments.
- Improved communication around what users could expect next.
There was nothing revolutionary about any of these changes. There was no expensive technology project or major redesign and there was no large-scale marketing campaign required. The difference here was that every recommendation was grounded in evidence from real users. so the organisation was able to focus its resources on the areas that genuinely mattered.
The results spoke for themselves.
Within six months, service uptake increased by 20%. The service itself and the actual need remained unchanged, but the experience surrounding it did.
This is an important lesson for any organisation delivering products, services or programmes. When customers fail to engage, the answer is not always to change what you offer. Sometimes the answer is more focused on improving how people experience it.
That is why customer experience research and consumer insight have become increasingly important for organisations across both the public and private sectors. They help uncover barriers that internal or survey data alone cannot explain. They reveal the emotional and practical obstacles people encounter during their journey. Most importantly, they help organisations make decisions based on evidence rather than assumptions.
At FN Research, we help organisations across Northern Ireland, UK and Ireland understand how customers experience their services, identify barriers to engagement and uncover opportunities to improve performance.
Whether you are delivering a public service, managing a customer programme or launching a new initiative, the customer perspective often reveals things that internal teams simply cannot see. If people are not engaging with your service as much as you expected, start by looking at the journey through their eyes.That is usually where the answers are hiding.
And guesswork is not a strategy!