Your Customers Don't Know What they Want

The nature of the personal computer is simply not fully understood by companies like Apple (or anyone else for that matter). Apple makes the arrogant assumption of thinking that it knows what you want and need. It, unfortunately, leaves the “why” out of the equation — as in “why would I want this?” The Macintosh uses an experimental pointing device called a “mouse.” There is no evidence that people want to use these things. I don’t want one of these new fangled devices.

—San Francisco Examiner, John C. Dvorak, 19 Feb. 1984

I found this quote on 37signals blog and immediately thought about a conversation I had a long time ago with a friend who did business development for a large NYC agency. We talked about how in their strategy sessions with clients, they would discuss how to elicit information from end users that they could in turn interpret. Let's face it, as customers, we would have not invented the mouse - or anything of that sort.

Right?

Whenever you design a survey, a feedback form, write a phone script - throw away everything you know about your product and service. Your customers and prospective customers are not in your head - they don't have your same history and assumptions about what you ask. Instead, look to capture the outcome they're seeking. What job are they trying to do?

Ask the questions, then listen for:

• indications as to how they're solving a problem now or thinking through it
• hints that the second answer is where you should focus
• clues as to what gets their hearts racing in addition to their minds going

Chances are, you'll be on a good track if you pay attention to those. Thinking about the feedback I provide, I'm very precise in exactly what I want - then again, it's a good bet that I don't know everything that would be possible. As a bonus consideration - work on not using yourself as a lead indicator on things. Chances are, you are less like your customers than you think.

[image of the surveying ladies]

Comments

[Denis]

They do not know what they want, that's true.

But also they surely know what they do not want, and this is another thing that marketers (myself included) tend to forget I think.

[Carl V. Natale]

Is it true that Henry Ford said "If I listen to my customers I would be selling faster horses"?

Do you know anyone who wished they could get rented DvDs through the mail before Netflix?

You have to focus on the problems that people want solved. If they knew the solution, they would have created it themselves.

People will tell you what's wrong with existing products and services. It's up to you to identify the innovation that will make them happy

[Maria Reyes-McDavis]

This is great insight! Especially, "Your customers and prospective customers are not in your head - they don't have your same history and assumptions about what you ask." Too many marketers and companies forget this important angle. They forget that customers come from a completely different perspective or "come from" and you have to be aware of that. As always, thought provoking, thanks!

[amymengel]

I really like Carl's comment above - focus on a problem to be solved, instead of focusing on a product. I think companies often get into the mode of incremental innovation and only tinkering with what already exists versus trying to create something entirely new.

It's also important to remember that it takes consumers a while to get out of their comfort zone and so new products shouldn't be given up on if they're not immediately successful. People thought the Aeron chair was hideous when it first came out, and now it's a best seller.

[Seth Gray]

Great piece. Along the same lines, there's a great article by IDEO's Jane Fulton Suri about how/when to use data to "inform our intuition. (not letting me post the link, but if you Google the following, it should be the first result: "informing our intuition" ideo)

[Adam]

Totally agree when you say that we have to throw away everything you know about your product and service. I think that identifying "who" your customers are is the most important task. We should then try to find out as much as we can about them and then, design our product. Many companies get it wrong by first designing the product and pushing it to the customers who didn't want it in the first place. These companies are still in the product or selling era when we are supposed to be in the ear of customer relationship.

[Valeria Maltoni]

@Denis - it is much easier to know what you don't want, or at least it sounds like it would be. Sometimes though we throw away the baby with the bathwater and reconsider when something takes off. Social proof that something is cool has everything to do with adoption.

@Carl - I've seen that phrase attributed to Ford, yes. And indeed we don't know what we want until we see it, or we see someone else using it.

@Maria - we see the world as we are, hence the value of asking and testing. Research will give us more data points to make smart decisions.

@Amy - good example on the Aeron. Do you think that part of the allure is that it's become associated with the entrepreneur who makes it? I do wonder.

@Seth - I'm familiar with IDEO's work and will search for that article. We should not discount our own experience - gut and intuition are part of that, rather inform it with external data points.

@Adam - we're in the knowledge economy, but we used to be in the industrial age and we're still by and large using that model today - to manage, and to produce. However, more and more we find that there are new services and products that get that very same job done in other ways. Often companies don't see those competitors until it's too late because they didn't focus on the job getting done.