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Giving Customers a Fair
Hearing
Eager to grow through
innovation, companies are looking to customers to guide them toward unmet
needs. But these entities often end up with vague, unusable — or even
misleading — customer input. Why?
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The
authors studied 10,000 customer
need statements from many industries and discovered that companies have
not even established a definition of what a customer need is or how user
input should be standardized in terms of structure and format. Too often,
companies ask customers to react to potential solutions, rather than zeroing
in on their expertise: the “job” they need to accomplish with the product or
service, and at which steps that experience could use improvement. By
deconstructing the job, companies can identify opportunities that are
universal and long-standing.
In addition, the authors say, companies can collect data that fits their
innovation strategy. What the
authors propose is a disciplined process for gathering customer requirements
that will then be addressed by innovative ideas. They outline the six
characteristics that a useful customer statement must possess, including
measuring value strictly from a user’s perspective — and not from the
factors the company believes should form the basis for the
customer’s evaluation. The most
helpful statements also prompt a clear course of action, specifying what
dimensions of the “job” need improvement, such as its sluggish pace or
inconsistent quality.
Read more from the source
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