Want to Provide Better Customer Value? Don’t Ask Customers What They Want.
At TeamSpirit, one of our core values is “Customer Value” and it is described as such:
We are committed to creating values that our customers themselves are not aware of.
This is a very simple statement with rather profound meaning. A majority of founders start their own companies simply because they have a brilliant idea. An idea that they believe in.
But not all the companies survive let alone thrive, and become successful. Some manage to get by, but never manage to grow significantly. Some are so successful that they become a verb.
The burning question is, what is the main difference between successful and failed companies?
The answer is, a better product.
What Exactly Is a “Better” Product?
Which brings us to the next part, what exactly is a better product?
Let us stop for a moment to think. There are various products that try to solve the same problem.
Yet in most cases, customers simply make their purchase choices based on service, quality and the cost. Even with the immersed popularity of freemium model these days — where cost isn’t a concern for basic usage — there are some products that manage to stand head and shoulder above the rest of the competitions.
I am sure we are all very familiar with:
- “Let’s Google it.”
- “I Ubered here.”
It’s not because there are no other competing solutions — of course, it helps that they are the first mainstream solutions of their kind in becoming a verb.
Let’s take Uber for example. Uber provides transportation and helps passengers go from point A to point B — essentially the same service a Taxi has been providing for decades, if not longer.
But what was the difference that makes a majority of us use the service?
Because it’s a better product at a cheaper price (at least in most part of the world). With seamless payment supported by an in-app booking system with the option to select the type of vehicles, and empowering the customer to know the total cost in advance, it makes the customer experience a lot better.
Remembered the days trying to get a cab on a raining day on the road side trying not to get splashed with water as cars drive by? Of course, depending on which part of the world you are staying, you might already have pretty decent booking systems for taxi as well — but most weren’t as convenient.
Even though both solve our problem of reaching form point A to B, Uber introduced a better experience.
A better product is a product that provides better value to customers.
How To Become a Verb: Don’t Ask Your Customers What They Want
What would have happened if Uber decided to simply do a simple user research and interview potential customers — those who take taxi regularly — for solutions?
They are mostly likely going to hear something like:
- “I want more cabs on the road so that I don’t have to wait too long on a raining day”; or
- “better pricing”; or
- “faster responses to phone call to do booking”.
What if they decided to use those responses and act on it as it is without giving it much thoughts about the customer value? What would have happened?
They might still be in business, they might still become a big company.
But they would have never become a verb.
A lot of the time, customers don’t know what they want. Yes, they know what are the problems they have very well. But when we ask what kind of solutions they want to solve their problems, the answer an average consumer or user gives will most likely be based on existing solutions:
- something they know;
- something they have seen or heard before; or
- something they have used before.
The customers simply don’t know what is possible — most customers are not able to communicate their unmet needs for innovative products.
If we only have been asking customers about what they want, who knows, we might still be riding horses to this day for our day to day commute.
As the famous quote from Henry Ford, the founder of Ford Motor company, we shouldn’t take customers suggestions at face value —
“If I had asked people what they wanted, they would have said faster horses.”
How To Become A Verb: What Should We Do Instead?
There are two approaches or methods to be able to provide better customer value. The good news is we can use both of them to provide even better customer values.
Method #1. Try To Understand Their Problems
Instead of just listening to what the customers think they want for a solution, try to understand what kinds of problems they are facing. It’s our responsibility to provide solutions. But this doesn’t mean we should discard customers wishes and suggestions all together.
Most of the time, the customers will tell what they want, and most of the time, companies ended up providing exactly that. We have to stop doing that!
Instead, try to understand why they are requesting such features or solutions.
Take a bank for example. The bank customers have been requesting for the bank to have more counters in their branches and also to open up more branches because they don’t want to wait too long at the bank.
The very obvious way to please and make the bank customers happy is simply to open up more branches and also employ more employees at each branch to make the process faster.
But hang on! Let’s try to understand their problems.
Let’s do that together, step by step.
The first few questions we have to ask ourselves is what’s making the process so long?
- Is it because the staffs are not efficient?
- Or is the forms too complicated for the customers?
- Is the physical size of the bank too small?
There are endless things that could be causing the issue.
But wait, let’s take a step back! Why are so many customers visiting the branches in the first place? It cannot be for withdrawing money. We got lots of ATM all over the cities for that. And we can be pretty sure it’s not because they want to chit-chat with the bank staffs.
As it turned out, most of the customers are visiting the banks to transfer money, and that’s what slowing down the whole operation — with people filling up account information, some trying to find account number in their bag while they are at the counters.
Yes, of course, more branches, more counters and more staffs would solve the issue — temporarily. But we can do better than that! In fact, much better than that!
The solution is online banking!
Let’s assume this is before internet banking becomes widely available across the globe.
The customers are just looking to transfer money and they are giving the best solution they know at that time — to have more branches, and more counters.
But it’s our responsibility to truly understand what the customers are trying to achieve and suggest innovative solutions which will help them accomplish what they are trying to do.
Always remind yourself about “faster horses” when you are about to blindly provide what the customers are requesting.
Method #2. Be Really Curious
Let’s take it up a notch. It’s not everyday, where we will be having customers sharing us about their problems or giving us suggestions.
A lot of times, customers don’t even realize they have a problem. A lot of people, including us, are already used to doing certain things in certain ways.
When was the last time we stopped doing something midway and question ourselves why we are doing it in that particular way?
Let’s take SpaceX for example. We have been launching countless satellites, sending astronauts, and even rovers to explore other planets. And all it took was one curious guy — the Elon Musk — to ask one very simple question.
Why aren’t we reusing the orbital booster rockets?
And the rest is history.
It’s true that it’s an extreme example, but it’s one of the most straight forward examples. Another good one would be the light bulbs. Before the first success, it seems like a something out of a Sci-Fi movies or a fairy tale. The customers either didn’t realize or simply do not assume it’s possible. They would never bother to even mention those problems.
So the next time, ask the customers about how are they performing certain operations. Think about why they are doing things in certain ways. What are they really trying to accomplish by performing those tasks? What can we do to help improve their tasks, to make it more efficient, more accurate and less error prone?
The goal is to offer your customers solutions to problems they don’t know they have.
But at the same time, it’s crucial that we don’t ended up solving a problem that doesn’t exists. Or worse, make sure not to end up creating a new problem just so we could solve it.
At TeamSpirit, we focus on helping our customers to improve their productivity and empower them to maximize their business values. IT industry has such as a great influence on the corporate productivity recently and the potential and possibilities are almost limitless when utilized well.
We provide products and solutions that will assist our customers with maximizing their enterprise value by helping them allocate more resources to their core business and tasks with higher strategic value instead of spending time on mundane tasks.
Employees working in various companies are still spending a significant amount of time on non-core work such as data input, which takes their focus away from important core work such as problem discovery and problem solving.
…And of course, we look forward to the day that we can TeamSpirit your career!
