customer-research

Customer Research

Guide for gathering and synthesizing real customer intelligence — from online communities, review sites, video comments, and social platforms — using the Hyper MCP scraper toolkit.

The goal is always the same: surface what customers actually say (in their own words), not what you assume they say.

Out of scope — defer to other skills

Request	Send them to
Researching competitor brands (site, ads, search rank)	competitor-intel
Writing copy informed by the research	copywriting
Optimizing a page using VOC insights	page-cro
Keyword research and SERP analysis	seo-research

Requirements

• Hyper MCP installed. https://app.hyperfx.ai/mcp
• Apify scrapers toolkit enabled at https://app.hyperfx.ai/integrations — provides Reddit, Twitter, YouTube, TikTok, and Instagram scrapers.

Not all scrapers need to be active for every run — enable the ones relevant to your ICP (Reddit and one review site is the minimum). If a scraper tool is missing from the tool list, skip that source and continue with the others.

Tool surface

Tool	Purpose
scrape_reddit	Mine posts and comments from subreddits or by keyword
search_tweets	Search X/Twitter with advanced operators and engagement filters
youtube_top_videos	Find the top YouTube videos on a topic — use as input for comment mining
youtube_comments_search	Pull comments from specific YouTube video URLs
youtube_transcript	Fetch the full transcript of a YouTube video for language/topic extraction
scrape_tiktok_videos	Search TikTok by keyword or hashtag — find trending conversations and comments
web_scrape_page	Scrape review pages (G2, Capterra, Trustpilot, app stores)
firecrawl_scrape_url	Cleaner extraction for JS-heavy review pages
search_google_results	Find discussion threads, forum posts, and site: searches
scrape_instagram_posts	Pull recent posts from specific brand or community accounts

Critical rules

1. Always capture verbatim language. Don't paraphrase customer quotes — the exact words are what gets used in copy and messaging. Extract and preserve them.
2. Scrape before summarizing. Don't rely on your training data to describe what customers say about a product. Actually fetch the sources.
3. Label confidence on every insight. High = 3+ independent sources, unprompted. Medium = 2 sources or prompted only. Low = single source. Never present a Low-confidence finding as a conclusion.
4. Mind the bias of each source. Reddit skews technical and skeptical. Review sites skew toward power users and people with strong opinions. Support tickets skew toward problems. Factor this in before generalizing.
5. Don't invent persona details. If you don't have data for a persona field, leave it blank rather than filling it in with assumptions.
6. youtube_transcript is slow (~15–30s). It spins up an isolated sandbox. Only use it for videos where the language in the spoken content (not comments) is what matters.

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Two modes

Most research combines both modes. Establish which applies before starting.

Mode 1 — Analyze existing assets

The user provides raw material: interview transcripts, survey responses, NPS verbatims, support tickets, win/loss notes. No tool calls needed — the job is extraction and synthesis.

Read references/synthesis-templates.md for the extraction framework, persona template, and VOC quote bank format. Then produce the requested deliverable.

Mode 2 — Go find research online

The user needs intel from online communities, review sites, and social platforms. This is where MCP tools do the heavy lifting.

See references/source-playbooks.md for per-source tool call examples and signal extraction tips.

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Mode 2 workflow

Bias toward action. If the user's message includes a product name (or URL) and a recognizable goal (research competitors, build a persona, understand churn, find VOC language), skip the questions, state your plan in one sentence, and start Step 1. Only ask when something essential is genuinely missing — product identity or target segment, for example. Don't ask all five questions before doing anything.

Step 1 — Pick sources based on ICP type

Before calling anything, decide which sources are worth hitting for this specific audience:

ICP	Required	Supplement if time allows
B2B SaaS, technical buyers	Reddit (role subs) + G2/Capterra	YouTube tutorials, X/Twitter
SMB / founders	Reddit (r/entrepreneur, r/smallbusiness) + G2/Capterra	YouTube, X/Twitter
Developer / DevOps	Reddit (r/devops, r/programming) + G2/Capterra	YouTube, Hacker News
B2C / consumer	Reddit hobby subs + app store reviews (1–3 star)	YouTube comments, TikTok
Enterprise	G2 Enterprise filter + X/Twitter	LinkedIn, YouTube

Minimum viable run: Reddit + one review site. Add supplementary sources only when the minimum doesn't produce enough signal, or when the ICP table above calls for them.

For platform-by-platform tool call examples, read references/source-playbooks.md.

Step 2 — Run targeted scrapes

Pull from at least 2 sources. Single-source findings are low confidence by definition.

Reddit — the highest-signal source for most ICPs:

scrape_reddit(
    searches=["[product category] frustrations", "[competitor name] problems"],
    sort="top",
    time="year",
    max_items=50,
    skip_comments=False,
    search_posts=True,
    search_comments=True
)

For specific subreddits, pair with start_urls:

scrape_reddit(
    start_urls=["https://www.reddit.com/r/marketing/"],
    searches=["CRM"],
    sort="top",
    time="year",
    max_items=30
)

YouTube comments — rich qualitative data:

# Step 1: find the relevant videos
youtube_top_videos(query="[product category] honest review", max_results=5, sort_by="views")

# Step 2: mine comments from the top results
youtube_comments_search(
    start_urls=["https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VIDEO_ID_1", "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VIDEO_ID_2"],
    max_comments=100,
    comments_sort_by="0"   # "0" = top comments, "1" = newest
)

X/Twitter — complaints, frustrations, and niche conversations:

search_tweets(
    search_terms='"[product name]" frustrating OR broken OR switched OR canceled',
    max_items=50,
    min_faves=5
)

Review sites (G2, Capterra, Trustpilot):

# G2 reviews for a specific product
web_scrape_page(
    url="https://www.g2.com/products/[product-slug]/reviews",
    ai_query="Extract the top complaints and pain points from customer reviews. Include verbatim quotes.",
    use_proxy=True
)

TikTok — consumer conversations and trending frustrations:

scrape_tiktok_videos(
    search_queries=["[product category] problems", "[competitor name] review"],
    results_per_page=30
)

Google discovery — find threads and communities you haven't thought of:

search_google_results(
    query='site:reddit.com "[product category]" "I switched" OR "I quit" OR "stopped using"',
    num_results=20
)

Step 3 — Extract signal from raw data

For each source, extract into this structure:

Field	What to capture
Verbatim quote	Exact words — do not paraphrase
Source	Platform, URL, date
Sentiment	Positive / negative / neutral / frustrated
Theme	Pain / trigger / outcome / alternative / language
Profile signals	Role, company size, industry hints from context

Step 4 — Synthesize across sources

After pulling from 3+ sources, synthesize into the research report format in references/synthesis-templates.md. The report includes:

• Top themes ranked by frequency × intensity
• VOC quote bank organized by theme
• Confidence labels on every finding
• Source bias notes

Step 5 — Build personas (optional)

Only build personas if you have ≥5 independent data points from a consistent segment. If not, say so and describe what additional research is needed first.

Persona template is in references/synthesis-templates.md.

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Questions to ask before starting

Only ask what's genuinely missing. If the product and goal are clear, go. If not, lead with these — one or two at a time, not all at once:

1. What's the product? (if not obvious from context — a URL works)
2. What's the goal? Improve messaging? Build personas? Understand churn? Find product gaps?
3. Who is the target segment? (all customers, a specific tier, churned users, prospects who didn't convert)
4. What do you already have? (transcripts, surveys, tickets, nothing)
5. What deliverable do you need? (synthesis report, quote bank, persona, competitive language comparison)

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Deliverables

Ask which one(s) the user needs before generating:

Deliverable	When to use
Research synthesis report	General intelligence gathering — themes, quotes, implications
VOC quote bank	Copy projects — verbatim customer language organized by theme
Persona document	ICP definition work, onboarding, sales training
Jobs-to-be-done map	Product prioritization, messaging architecture
Competitive language comparison	Positioning work — how customers describe you vs. competitors
Research gap analysis	When the user has partial data and wants to know what's missing