Chapter 02: Examples of customer needs

Identifying customer needs provides the basis to test your ideas (what meets the customer needs or not) and create the confidence and focus for your organisation in your decision making about what to create next for your customers.

It’s helpful to get the these customer needs as accurate as you can through continuing the conversations with customers. Because their lives and needs change over time.

Here are some examples of customer needs:

A cafe owner might be wanting to create a great stop for commuters. After conversations with those that drop in during the weekday mornings, they might realise that: “people need their coffee delivered in a predictable way or it adds stress to their commute”. This is a customer need. From this need the cafe could create new ways to ensure that they know what coffee to make, have it ready, and reduce any disruptions to the commuters morning from long queues or other issues.

A founder of a money management app may be wanting to get students using it. After conversations with a range of students, they might realise that: “people need to just know if they can make a particular spend, and the money going in and out of their accounts makes it difficult to know”. This is a customer need. From this need, the founder could create a range of new features in the app to help with this challenge.

A product owner in a large telecommunications company may be wanting to understand how to tailor features to help people engage in videos on their mobile phones. After conversations with people around this activity, they might realise that: “people need help structuring their learning when they watch videos for educational purposes”. This is a customer need. From this need, the product owner could create a range of new features to help these people.

Read up on Chapter 03: How to identify Customer Needs