When NOT to Ask Your Customer
Author: Katie
One of the things I learned at SXSWi that really resonated with me at the time (and has stuck with me) came from Kathy Sierra’s talk on breakthroughs. It was repeated throughout the panels on community building so this is more of a summary and not a direct quote:
Customers really suck at making breakthroughs
That’s right. You heard me. Your customers’ or community members’ ideas can be sub-par.
It makes sense when you think about it. It’s the classic dichotomy between writer/editor. Individuals have great ideas, they put those ideas into some sort of form, format, place, media, product, etc. Then the editor comes by and says things like, “You should spell check this” and “You should take out this part and add more explanation here.”
Customers are the same way. They buy your product/service or join your network, like it, then think up ways it could be better. It should be blue, it should go faster, it should have more memory, it should play music, it should be made of more durable materials. That is the crucial role that they play, and they do it well. They’ll take your product and do things with it that you never thought of, and in your next version you can adapt and add to it to make it better.
But when it comes to redesigning your whole service, or coming up with a brand new product – they’re not your best resource. As a collective they tend to think inside the box and, as people, they are naturally resistant to change. If you asked a group of cell phone users years ago how they would improve the phone they might’ve suggested “Add a camera and MP3 player,” “make it come in different colors,” but they wouldn’t have come up with the iPhone. This is why Alpha and Beta releases are so popular. You can put your revolutionary idea out there and let your customers do what they do best, suggest improvements.
This is crucial when it comes to social media and crowdsourcing. Using social monitoring tools to gather insights about your product and service from your consumers is a fantastic idea. And using them to make incremental improvements is a perfect application of that information. But beyond that, it’s up to YOU to internalize those insights and use them to make the breakthroughs your company needs to get ahead and reach the next level.
Agree? Disagree? Think I’m misinterpreting something? Leave me a comment -
Photo credit: Capture Queen (Flickr)
Posted in Happy Unconference, Social Media Strategy | 
Tags: breakthroughs, crowdsourcing, customer ideas
I agree completely. To be honest, we used to say the same things about marketing people (yeah, I’m an engineers). I would argue that if marketing and sales had their way, we would have the most efficient, cost-effective gas lighting in the world. But not the electric light bulb. Innovation does not come from group-think and customer feedback. It is always easier to pick apart someone’s ideas, visions and prototypes. But to come up with something original from nothing is a real talent. Edison even said that he would not have used Tungsten in the bulb if he knew merallurgy because then he would have known it could not be done.
You are absolutely correct to say that customer feedback and input are there to make incremental improvements and changes to products and services. However, they are not a source of new inspiration other than to use them to look at what they are doing and take that back into your shop and innovate further – without distraction.
I have always laughed when people ask about gathering requirements. There is not a customer around that knows what they want, let alone require. They have a problem that needs an answer. So, the trick is to ask them, “what problems are you trying to solve?” or “lets talk about your process to get this done”. Don’t let them put it in terms of products or things they already know — that won’t help. Have them do it in terms of wish lists and desires and “it would be 10 times easier if we could just …”. Then, you have something to work on that will solve real-world problems and let the innovation begin.
I disagree. Customers are smarter than ever and control everything in the end and usaully beginning. It’s the developers task to make sure theyre smart enough to comprehend the customers needs and ideas.
I totally agree! Let me clarify because I think we’re actually saying the same thing- I’m definitely not suggesting that you ignore your customers altogether. They are smart and they’re your major stakeholders. Their needs and ideas should be heard at every step. But as a group they’re just not going to band together and come up with something altogether new and innovative. As a developer/designer you need to ask them what their problems are, what they wish something could do, etc – then take that feedback and translate it into your own breakthrough.
Here’s an example: let’s say you’re planning a major redesign of your community site, so you ask for your community’s input. You get comments back like “put the ‘upload picture’ button higher on the homepage.” Ok, good feedback, but that’s not going to lead to the breakthrough you need to accomplish a major overhaul of your site to increase active membership and ultimately increase advertising prices. But what you can infer from that comment is that in this instance, and maybe others, there are functions your community does more often than other things and they want quicker access to that. Maybe instead of moving it higher on the homepage you develop a permanent bookmark bar on the top, bottom or side that quickly links to all the actions they take most. Moving the button = incremental change. Creating a whole new navigation structure for easier use = breakthrough. You didn’t do exactly what your customer wanted, but by foregoing that you solved their fundamental problem in a better way.
That was kind of my point, there is always a genius needed in the company to understand this. I think this is why most companies rely on consultants. Unfortunately, most consultants are dense and most websites ultimately fail.
and yes, I just called you a genius.