hardScenarioCase StudyMidSeniorStaff
You cannot speak to your users directly because sales owns every account relationship. How do you run discovery?
5 min readUpdated 2026-08-15Target archetype: Enterprise Captive, Product Startup
Answer
Short answer
Treat blocked access as a research design problem rather than a blocker. Make the account team's job easier so they open the door, triangulate the proxies you can reach against behavioural evidence, and state explicitly which decisions your sample cannot support.
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Likely follow-ups
- The account manager sits in on every call and answers for the user. How do you handle that in the room?
- Which decision would you refuse to make on proxy evidence alone, and what would you do instead?
- You get two hours with one user for the whole quarter. What do you spend it on?
- How would you build a standing research panel in an organisation that has never allowed one?
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