Chapter 03: How to identify a customer need

To identify a customer need, explore the quotes you have captured from your conversations. You’ll start to see common patterns that could group your quotes on things that your customer believe. Once you have a few groups of quotes, look at the tensions between these groups. It is in the tensions between what your customers believe that you’ll find needs. People’s minds are often not integrated, and they can hold different (often contradicting) beliefs. If you can find two opposing beliefs they hold, and help them to integrate them you’ve found a way to help them, a need.

Eg. When talking to people about how they engage in videos on their mobile phone, you may hear common quotes on the topics of ‘watching in ad hoc times’, ‘struggles with internet connection’, and ‘watching with other people’. Exploring the tensions between watching in ad hoc times, and watching with other people might reveal the issues around completing videos in time, or an interest for continuing to pick up watching a video when the two people are apart again. A need here could be in the way these people maintain some sense of shared experience, while watching parts of a video at different times and places.

When talking to students about how they manage their finances, you may hear common quotes on the topics of ‘running out of money’, ‘managing unpredictable income and expenses’, and ‘trying to save’. Exploring the tensions between ‘managing unpredictable income and expenses’, and ‘trying to save’, you might reveal issues around this unpredictability undermining efforts to save. A need here could be in the way money is moved or visualised differently when it is committed to a saving goal.

When talking to commuters about their experience of a cafe, you may hear common quotes on the topics of ‘parking challenges’, ‘the stress of work issues in their mind’, and ‘the ideal commute’. Exploring the tensions between ‘parking challenges’ and ‘the ideal commute’ might reveal a need of physical access to the cafe, and potentially reveal the need of a wider range of commuters in accessing their coffee without even needing to park and get into the cafe.

Once you have a found a customer need, then connect all the related quotes to strengthen it, or challenge it.

Ok, what next? Check out Chapter 04: What to do with Customer Needs