Just close your eyes and picture it. Once upon a time in the 90’s, a product had three sizes, a singular price, and two colors. Life was simple. We drank from garden hoses, MTV still played music videos, we were told (and believed) we wouldn’t always have a calculator on us, and the color teal was everywhere, from cars to sports team logos to those swishy jumpsuits.
And then someone asked: “But what if the customer could build their own?”
Fast-forward to now, when we’re all drowning in modular chaos, dynamic pricing, and user journeys that look like spaghetti with a bourbon hangover.
Welcome to the jungle that we all know as 2025, folks!
This post is about customization for complex products, and here’s to hoping it’s a watershed moment on your research journey!
The Rise of Complexity Creep
You thought you were launching a product. Turns out, you’re launching something with the configuration options of a Boeing 787 cockpit—and everyone gets to be a pilot.
Who’s to blame?
- Marketing: “People love choice! Let’s give them 18 toggles, a crypto wallet, and dark mode.”
- Product: “We built 37 features, so… let’s launch all of them.”
- Leadership: “Let’s test this in five markets with eight personas, six price points, and no budget.”
And yet—no one seems to know how to validate which combination of features actually… ya know… works.
Cue the call (or bat signal) for an assist from SMARI: the calm in the configurational storm, the data nerds with the guts to say,
“Just because we can offer it doesn’t mean people want it.”
And the “we” is intentional. We view ourselves as an extension of your team, always.
Our Toolkit: Sharper Than Ever, Sassier Than You Even Imagined
Conjoint Analysis
This is our lightsaber. We take a bloated, over-engineered product and reduce it to cold, brutal consumer trade-offs. Then we hand you a snazzy deck that says, “Here’s what matters. Here’s what doesn’t. Also, Brenda in Segment 2B wants you to stop trying so hard.”
MaxDiff
A.K.A. “Battle Royale: Feature Edition.” Perfect for separating actual demand from stakeholder dreams.
Scenario Simulators
We build what-if universes where we raise the price, cut the fluff, and simulate launch impact.
Leadership wants to ship the $199 bundle with AI and absolutely no human support?
Cool—let me show you a chart called “Customer Churn Forecast (Now featured with Real Tears).”
We Are the Last Line of Sanity Between You and a Failed Launch
Marketing wants a splash. Product wants edge cases. The CEO wants everything to be free while also being profitable.
Meanwhile, researchers are in the corner with 800 rows of conjoint data saying,
“I hate to break it to you, but 74% of users don’t even see the feature you’re obsessed with.”
I promise, SMARI is not the enemy here. We’re keeping you from spending $2 million on a plan no one understands and/or wants.
The insight we provide at SMARI isn’t just “nice to have.” It’s a seatbelt. And you’re driving full-speed into a wall of features in a rainstorm with minimally functioning windshield wipers.
Qual Is King (And Brenda’s Opinion from Segment 2B Matters)
Sure, you’ve got all the data. But without qual, you’ll never know why:
- Someone skipped the top-tier plan: “It felt like a trap.”
- They chose the mid-tier: “Because it had an adorable panda icon.”
- They dropped off entirely: “The word ‘dashboard’ haunts my dreams.”
Numbers tell you what happened. Qual tells you how to stop screwing it up.
The Last Word
Customization is sexy until you realize it creates analysis paralysis, product confusion, and stakeholder delusion.
But bringing SMARI into the mix? We bring structure to chaos. We turn 1,000 “it depends” into clear product strategy. And we do it without trying to turn everything into an NFT-powered chatbot with a dynamic pricing engine that can only be purchased via Cryptocurrency.
So, the next time you’re drowning in configurable madness, say it loud, say it proud:
“Get SMARI on the phone.”
Once you’ve done that, you’ll be back to daydreaming about the 90’s and just how rad that old Pizza Hut really was while you played Snake on your Nokia.
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SMARI is an award-winning Indiana-based market research consultancy that was founded in 1983 with the idea of guiding change and inspiring confidence. We are proud to work with SMEs as well as a variety of Fortune 500 brands. We are powered by our core values: integrity, community, perseverance, trust, passion, curiosity, and innovation. SMARI’s expertise includes full project scopes, including instrument design, sampling & fielding services, reporting & analysis in Healthcare, CPG, Retail, Food & Beverage, Manufacturing, Financial Services industries, and beyond. Much has changed in our 40+ years, but our tagline and overarching mission remain the same—to guide change and inspire confidence. Start a conversation with us at www.SMARI.com.
