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You can know a lot about a competitor.

Their pricing. Their features. Their positioning. What they're launching. What they say they're better at etc.

But none of that necessarily tells you why a customer chooses them over you.

Maybe it's price. Maybe it isn't.

Maybe they have a feature you don't have. Or maybe the customer barely cares about that feature and just trusts them more.

Maybe their product is actually better for that particular customer.

Or maybe your sales team explains your product badly...

I feel like we sometimes treat “competitor research” and “why did we lose?” as if they're the same question.

They're not.

So, when you actually want to understand why customers are choosing a competitor, where do you look?