Here is an excerpt from an article written by Alexandra Samuel for Harvard Business Review and the HBR Blog Network. To read the complete article, check out the wealth of free resources, and sign up for a subscription to HBR email alerts, please click here.

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Smart companies recognize that both their marketing and their broader business strategy need to be informed by carefully gathered customer insight. But what do you do when your customers disagree—especially if their disagreement echoes throughout your various social media channels? What if their needs or desires are mutually contradictory?

That’s the situation the airline industry may soon face, thanks to the FCC’s reconsideration of in-flight mobile phone use. Customers have long been clamoring for in-flight phone liberation, but since its announcement the FCC has also been flooded with comments from passengers who dread the prospect of noisily chatting seat mates. Should the FCC move away from its pervasive ban on in-flight phones, those conflicting views will become a problem for individual airlines—or even individual flight attendants.

When you’re faced with a decision that’s going to make some customers angry no matter what you choose, it’s hard to know which voices to listen to, or whether to listen at all.

There is no more valuable time to listen to your customers than when they disagree, however. If you take the time to dive deep into a controversial topic—ideally with a group of customers who have been providing ongoing input into your business—you have a better chance of identifying strategies that will either help you satisfy competing interests, or focus your attention on the most crucial customer groups.

In a survey of 1,014 Americans who weighed in on the topic last month, we heard the following about mobile phones on airplanes:

o 44% of respondents agree that the FCC should permit the usage of cell phones on planes in flight, while 45% oppose the idea.

o 40% of respondents say they would be very likely or somewhat likely to choose airline carriers based on their in-flight mobile use policies. Of these, the majority (54%) would choose a phone-fee carrier; 29% would choose a phone-friendly carrier, and 17% would prefer a carrier with lower mobile rates for in-flight phone use.

o 55% say the regulation of phone usage should be a joint responsibility of both airlines and FCC. Only 12% thinks it should be the exclusive responsibility of the FCC, while 15% thinks the airlines should establish the guidelines.

These survey results reflect the public divide on this issue—and also show that rules on cellphone usage can indeed sway people’s ticket-buying decisions. If you’re in the airline industry, you better be tuned in to your customers.

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Here is a direct link to the complete article.

Alexandra Samuel is Vice-President of Social Media at Vision Critical, a market research technology provider. She is the author of Work Smarter with LinkedIn (Harvard Business Review Press, June 2013). Follow her on Twitter at @awsamuel.