I did a quick note on the problems of not understanding your customer, or that THEY did not understand the questions you are asking them.
I just received some very interesting information from one of the professors here at BI, C. A. Solberg. This was also mentioned by professor, Eric Olson.
In a recent study done, concerning customer orientations, it might not be a good thing to actually have a two-way communication with your customer.
“It can even be dangerous” to quote on of them.
The reason might be that your customer does not have a single clue of what your are asking them to tell you, because they do not understand the products potential .
They mentioned a technological product, and an IT service.
If you are a producer of a technological product, you should try to have a two-way communication with your potential customers. They can give you important advise on how to develop the product.
However, if you are developing IT software, services etc., studies show that it actually sets you back more, or that by surveying your customer about future development, will set you more back financially than what you would generate from the study. This is because the common people tend not to have knowledge, or an understanding of what can be done. They might say – “Change the banner into red, instead of blue.” Not because that would make it better but because it is the only thing they can think of.
I am looking forward to read this report once I get my hands on it.
Tags: BI, Communication
It is a bit like the famous quote by Henry Ford (which he might not ever have said, just like the one about getting any colour car you want as long as it is black…):
“If I had asked people what they wanted they would have said ‘Faster horses!’…”
There are several variations on the theme available, but they all hint at the fact that for truly disruptive and innovative products you as an innovator just have to stick to your guns and do what YOU think is the right thing for the market. Without falling into the “build it and they will come” trap… ;)
Personally I think that it is a matter of timing. For something really new and out of the box, getting customer research through questionnaires and interviews early on in the project can be dangerous. Once you reach a stage where you can put a prototype in front of a customer and see if they grok it, how they interact with it, you will get really valuable input.
// Manne
I agree with you, and many of the problems that we see in the big industries today are that they concentrate on asking the consumer what they want – don’t get much out of it and therefore pump billions into R&D. Instead, there are thousands of men and women who are “crazy” enough to quit their job, work in their garage and at the end of the year come up with something that might revolutionize the industry.
The problem, or should I say, the difficulty the big ones have, is that they need to answer to at least two groups that will hold them back – the board of directors, and the stock holders. They want to have good numbers, they want their dividends at the end of the year. An entrepreneur does not face this.
There is a way of course, that is highly used, and that is that the entrepreneur invents the product, and then the big ones buy that from him/her. And I guess that is why companies often give a blank check to the entrepreneur. They know that they just saved them, the board of directors, and stock owners a lot of money.
Congratulations to be the first person to leave a comment, I actually did a little victory dance when I saw. Okay, I have gotten some comments before, but most of them asked if I wanted to have a bigger penis or if I wanted to see “Rusian Laids danzz”.
I’m fine on both stages.