Do You Presume What Customers Want?

Imagine two people meeting up on a blind date. The first person begins by introducing themselves, going through a 10–15 minute detailed introduction and overview of their life and history. They then move quickly into explaining how and when both of them will get married, buy a country house, and have three children, illustrating how this plan is the best and right option, and that no other person is as suited as they are for this.

This sounds weird and presumptuous, yet that’s how many companies approach their customers. I’ve seen dozens of such approaches, where a new product or service is created without any customer input, and the assumption is “we’ll enter market X and attain customers from segment Y”, simply with a compelling pitch.

And it seems that nobody has asked customers what they think about this “offer they won’t be able to refuse.” And as organizations, we do it all the time. “Competitor Z has this product, so we should sell it too because our customers will buy it from us” or “We just need to tell customers our story and how what we offer is the best and they’ll understand the value”.

Yet for how many times we do these things over and over again, the results continually fall short. Not because the intentions are bad, but because we presume a lot about our potential customers. And because we don’t take the time to understand their unique context, problems, and challenges — because we don’t tune into their needs, we come off sounding like the person pitching themselves on the blind date.

In a different blind date scenario, the person would first learn about the other — their interests and aspirations, and identify areas where they could complement and elevate them. They wouldn’t shoehorn them into a preset plan but rather focus on learning as much as they could about the other person first and foremost. They’d focus on building a genuine relationship and understanding of the other person.

The question is why we don’t take the time to do this as organizations with our customers. We send out generic satisfaction or feedback surveys or assume that we already know what customers want. We create personas around personality types rather than shared problems and contexts. And we then develop offerings that frequently lack market uniqueness and/or serve no distinct purpose in the minds of the customer.

If we want to develop game-changing ideas and truly revolutionary innovations, we need to stop presuming what our customers want and spend more time learning about them. The way to truly kill the competition is to know your customers better. Seeing things the competition doesn’t see. Uncovering unmet needs which can’t be captured from an online survey. Because otherwise, we’re that person on the blind date, oblivious to why the other person isn’t really that into you.

About the Author

Andrea’s 25-year, field-tested background provides practical, behavioral science approaches to creating differentiated, human-focused organizations. A 4x ADDY award-winner, TEDx presenter, and 3x book author, she began her career at a tech start-up and led the strategic sales, marketing, and customer engagement efforts at two global industrial manufacturers. She now leads a change agency dedicated to helping organizations differentiate their brands using behavioral science.

In addition to writing and consulting, Andrea speaks to leaders and industry organizations around the world. Connect with Andrea to access information on her book, keynoting, research, or consulting. More information is also available at www.pragmadik.com or www.andreabelkolson.com.

Originally published at https://www.linkedin.com.