MKT.12:4.1 - Define the receiving question and try the existing answer

Name who must decide, what alternatives remain live, when the decision matters and what answer would change it. Replace “understand our customers” with, for example, “decide whether the next offer needs an easier acquisition route or a different way of performing the work”. Ask what observation would distinguish those alternatives. If no plausible answer changes the move, revise the question or stop collecting.

Inspect available service records, previous inquiries, current customer accounts and relevant external sources. Check their subject, period and conditions before reuse. An old answer about individual buyers may not answer a current question about organisations with a separate access authority. Conversely, age alone does not defeat an answer whose conditions still hold.

Use sufficient information. When a missing fact can be obtained by a known suitable operation, obtain that fact and check its meaning. For a surviving non-routine knowledge question, take the question and existing grounds to RMP.1. Its qualification can return an existing answer, adjacent work, a missing-input hold or a research brief. Calling an activity customer research does not determine which result is appropriate.