Uncovering the Jobs That Cause Customers to Hire Products and Services
People hire services and products to get specific jobs done in their lives. This article will help you to uncover and understand these jobs. You will be able to improve your product, shape your marketing and bring insights about customer needs closer to your designers and developers.
We will look at the moment in which people switch from an old to a new solution and a bunch of techniques that help you to understand how this process works. At the end, you will get a template and a bunch of helpful links to get you started. This article is a comprehensive recap of work done by #JTBD thought leaders such as Bob Moesta, Chris Spiek, Clayton Christensen and others.
What are Jobs?
The Jobs to be Done framework focuses on uncovering what influences a customers’ decision making process when they switch from one product to another. In plain words, it helps you to understand how and for what reasons people chose to commit to your rather than a competitor’s product.
The basic premise of the framework is that people do not just buy products and services for their features or other attributes, they hire them to get a job done. Once a job occurs in their lives, customers will look for the most convenient, attractive and least price-intensive solution to get it done.
Jobs are fairly constant
While jobs largely remain the same over time (consider the job “Get a message from Person A to Person B”), the solutions will most probably vary (People used to send pieces of paper with hand-written messages, so-called letters, before they discovered e-mail). This view allows you to perceive and segment markets in a more customer-centric way.
Jobs are more than functional problems
Why people buy a Porsche cannot be simply explained by a functional need to get from A to B. Each job can be understood as a combination of three factors:
- Functional: The tasks that customers want to get done.
- Emotional: How people feel about and perceive a new solution or their problem.
- Social: How customers want to be perceived by others.
Why is seeing products and services through jobs relevant?
Traditionally market research focuses on attributes of products (competitors’ features, own features, focus groups etc.) and customers (demographics, psychographics, etc.) to spot innovation opportunities. While these methods and data can uncover important correlations between the product and its purchasing customer groups (market segments), they lack insights into the why people choose a product. Market research data that is beneficial for evaluating the performance of a product in the past can be dangerous if you try to decide what to focus on next.
“When managers define market segments along the lines for which data are available rather than the jobs that customers need to get done, it becomes impossible to predict whether a product idea will connect with an important customer job. Using these data to define market segments causes managers to aim innovation at phantom targets.” — Clayton M. Christensen and Michael E. Raynor, Innovator’s Solution
By putting the context and the jobs to be done first, it is much easier to understand the causality behind customers’ purchase decisions. Different products can make sense to the same person, based on the context in which they find themselves in, for example in situations such as “on-the-go” or “with others”.
This is what the methods presented next help you to discover.
The Switch
Understanding what happened before a purchase is a practical and highly effective way to start understanding why it happened.
This is why the Jobs to be Done framework is partly based on interviews that focus on highlighting the circumstances of the moment when customers decide to switch from one product to another (the Switch) and the story that led customers to this moment.
“The switch is the moment where there is an explicit choice towards a new solution.” — Bob Moesta and Chris Spiek, The Rewired Group
The Switch is the moment where a customer is finally convinced (after a more less lengthy process of decision-making) that the new product might get their job done in a more satisfying way and goes on with it.
Why it matters
Understanding the customers’ story that led them to switching has many hidden advantages.
Firstly you get to know the criteria that people use to hire your new or fire their old product. You will find out which features are prioritized in the eyes of your customers and consequently on which features you should concentrate your design, development and marketing.
You will also get an insightful glimpse at which other solutions or products the customer considered to get his job done prior to purchase. Most probably, this so-called consideration set will include products way outside of your product category.
Example. The CEO of Netflix describes in this video how Netflix competes with work, wine and other solutions hired to pass an evening at home. It clearly demonstrates how thinking outside of your product category is necessary to understand how your customers position your product or service in the context of their lives.
Most importantly, by uncovering the situational, emotional and social circumstances that play a role in your customer’s decision-making process, you will understand the trade-offs customers make when comparing your product to others. This is crucial to understanding which needs might be underserved and where opportunities for innovation might be met with demand, setting your solution on a course to success.
So why do people switch from one product to another?
In order to answer this question, think about your last larger purchase, for example a mattress. I am sure that you took some time thinking about which model or type you should buy and that various situations, people and emotions influenced your journey to a new mattress. You might have seen the same mattress at your friend’s house or have one day woken up with a terrible back pain that didn’t go away for the whole day.
With every new purchase or behavior change, people go through a complex process of decision-making that is not only influenced by functional requirements but is also surrounded by a lot of emotional energy.
The Jobs to be Done framework describes this energy with the help of a simple tool called the Forces Diagram that you can see below.
There are two forces that move the customer from the old solution to hiring a new product, the PUSH of the current situation and the PULL of the new solution. These forces are accompanied by two progress-blocking forces at the bottom of the diagram, the ANXIETY of the new solution and the HABIT of the present.
These forces can be explained in the following way:
Push
The push describes the need to make my current situation better. The leading thought here is: “What I have is not good enough.” It describes all the struggles and situations which stir people up to look for change.
In the mattress journey, this might be the terrible back pain caused by the old mattress or the purchase of a new, wider bed frame that you need to fill.
Pull
The other driver of progress, the pull, is created by the new solution that your customer imagines. This new idea, as symbolized by the light bulb in the diagram, is a fantasy created in the mind of your customer about how much better his or her life might look after the purchase of the new product or service. It is created by your product’s marketing, the customer’s social environment etc.
The customer might need to see and touch the mattress before buying it or quite the opposite, she might just buy it based on a recommendation without ever touching or lying on the mattress at all.
The pull is led by the thought: “Can this help me to make progress and get the job done better?”
Anxiety
Every consideration and fantasy of a new way (pull) is accompanied by progress-blocking anxieties. The purchase might be too expensive, the handling too difficult, the barriers of purchase too high.
You might have purchased a mattress a few months back, which will probably block you from investing a large sum again.
We might think: “Is this too expensive?” or “Will my partner support it?”
Habit
The “What I have right now, is good enough” thought is probably the strongest hurdle that your product or service must overcome. If people are familiar with their solution or if the necessity to change is not large enough, people won’t switch.
Understanding the anxieties experienced by your customers is a very important aspect of #JTBD research. Lowering them in consequence remains one of the most effective ways to increase your conversion rate.
Similarly, you could invest in letting your customers know about the negative aspects of their current situation and thus increase the push forces (insurances do this all the time), but it simply is not a nice thing to do.
Whatever your approach, once the moment is reached when the progressive forces are stronger than the progress-blocking forces, the customers will switch. The trade-offs are made in the mind of your customer, the positives overweight the negatives and money is put down on the table.
Getting to the story leading people to switch
To understand how these trade-offs were made and what forces were in play you need to understand what events happened in the purchase journey of your customer that led him to his decision. Recording the story that people went through on their way to your solution will almost universally reveal unexpected information, especially because no decisions are entirely rational.
JTBD interviewing is all about getting the story of your customers’ progress on record, understanding all the causes and moments that led to purchase.
You start your interview by asking questions about the moment the customer purchased your product (The Switch). During the interview you retrace the story from the switch to the first thought, when your customer thought that what she has was not good enough anymore.
On the way you will often discover how complicated and unexpected some buying decisions were, broadening your understanding of your product’s features and the customers’ behavior.
To help you with this retrospective interviewing process, the framework offers a second tool: The Timeline. Let’s have a look at it.
The First Thought
Once your customer wakes up with the realization: “What I have is not good enough. I might need to make progress.” the decision-making process begins. During the interview, it is one of your goals to try to find out, when, and most importantly, under what circumstances this thought occured. Sometimes, negative experiences might have triggered these thoughts, sometimes your customer might experience your product at a friend’s house and be pulled to it. Either the case, from this moment on your customer starts to be sensitive to new solutions.
Passive Looking
In this phase your customers are increasingly sensitive to possible options that might help them to get their jobs done better. They do not make trade-offs yet, nor do they narrow down their selection strongly. They do not put any real energy into the looking process yet and as Bob Moesta put it greatly in this interview example, they remain in fantasy land. Considering the mattress again, you might think: “If I ran across a great, new mattress for little money and they would deliver it to my doorstep, I’d get it right away.”
Event Nr. 1
Usually at some point, something happens that makes you start looking more actively: “This needs to get solved. I cannot continue like this.”
In my personal mattress journey, a friend of mine has got a slipped disk. This definitely made me to look for new alternatives to my own, not so good mattress.
Active Looking
Once your customer is investing some real energy into looking for solutions, for example by browsing websites, visiting stores or asking friends for recommendation or information, the trade-offs are formed and the most important decision criteria crystallize. This is when your customers’ value proposition is formed.
Event Nr. 2
More often than not, as you dig deeper in your interview, you might discover a pretty discrete and decisive moment, when the customer feels suddenly feels pushed to action again. “If I don’t get this solved by a certain time, it’s not going be good”. It might be a conflict with a partner about the back-pain-fueled-grumpiness in the mattress scenario or a sudden drop in prices (Black Friday scenario).
Deciding
When the criteria are clear and trade-offs of possible alternatives are understood, your customer usually narrows down their options to two or three options. As mentioned earlier, finding out about this so-called consideration set provides great insights about what your product is actually competing with.
Buying
“I’ve decided and paid money. I will have to live with my decision.” The buying process itself might be very short or pretty long, depending on the nature of your service or product. However, at this point most anxieties are overcome or weakened and your customer gives your solution a real chance. It is important to note that this kind of commitment is usually not based on significant experience with the product. Therefore, the customers’ understanding of whether the new will replace the old and whether your solution fulfills the job is only partial. True value is not created yet.
Consuming
In the weeks following the purchase, the customers are no longer in love with their newly acquired solution, have gathered some significant experience with it and can more clearly judge whether the job is fulfilled in a more satisfactory way or not. “I’ve used it and understand if it is better or not.” It is now that true value is created in the mind of your customer.
Satisfaction
During consumption the customer comes to realize if he or she is actually satisfied with the new product. If not, this frustration might act as a forward-pushing force in the consequent search for a better solution in near the future.
Conducting
Jobs to be Done Interviews
In this section we will explore some practical tips and tricks for conducting your first set of JTBD interviews.
Recruiting
Because JTBD interviews take around 30–45 minutes and tend to be pretty intense, you will need to prepare very well. As for all qualitative research methods, getting the right people is as crucial as the interviewing itself.
Spending a little time with designing your screener and selecting your participants carefully will prepare you for great insights and I advise you to read through this interviewing handbook to get concrete tips on recruiting for B2C and B2B products.
In either case, you will want to find people who can actually tell you why they purchased your product. This requires that you select participants,
- who were the ultimate decision-makers. This means that they had the largest influence over budget, timing and selection of alternatives. In constellations, where several people influenced the decision, such as married couples, groups of friends or business networks, you will need to screen out people with most influence.
- who did not receive the product as a gift. You cannot expect much energy for your interview if the person simply got the product as a gift. They did not struggle, nor went through any kind of decision process. You might, however, want to interview the person who gave it to them.
- who did not buy the product too long ago. Since you will be relying on a person’s memory to uncover their story, it might be buried too deep if it happened too long ago. Bob and Chris recommend to interview people who switched somewhere between 30–90 days ago.
- who did not buy the product too recently. Directly after a purchase not enough time has passed for the customer to realize, whether the job is fulfilled to a satisfactory level or not. Just like with every fresh relationship, your interviewee should have had time to put down the pink glasses of fresh love.
Should you be confronted with people who have little to say about what influenced them during the decision process or when reconstructing the timeline during the interview is impossible, there is a good chance that you have run into someone, who falls into the aforementioned categories.
Incentives
Because the interviews tend to occupy quite a long time in your interviewees’ schedule, make sure to compensate them for it. Since JTBD interviews do not try to validate assumptions but rather concentrate on hearing a customer’s story of purchase, money or gift cards are working perfectly well as rewards.
To make sure that your interviews don't fall into the “product improvement” pit, it is good practice to avoid rewarding your interviewee’s with product-related rewards, such as free subscription periods and similar.
A note on Business-to-Business Products:
In the context of businesses, you will need to understand:
- Who where the people involved in the process. (Roles, Job Titles). Consider stakeholder-mapping for this.
- Was the product purchased by an individual or in a team?
- What jobs does the product actually get done for all stakeholders involved in shaping the decision?
- Who brought the idea up? Who held it back? Who moved it forward? For what reasons and in which contexts?
- Who made the final decision?
As you can see, JTBD interviewing in the B2B space is all about understanding not only the individual job requirements but also the dynamics of the system, in which the decisions were made. You might need to conduct several rounds of interviews to understand these dynamics.
You might want to start to by identifying who was involved and what objectives each stakeholder had, in order to identify the people involved in forming the consideration set and articulating trade-offs and decision criteria.
As part of an ongoing discussion, I am happy to hear your feedback on JTBD interviewing in the B2B space.
How to…
Introduce Yourself. Begin your interview with a friendly introduction, clarify that there are no right or wrong answers and bring your interviewee in the right mood by telling them that you are interested in hearing their story of how they purchased the product. The interview is not about making the product better, but about hearing how people talk about it.
Be casual and let them know that it’s OK to not remember everything or abort the interview if they feel the need to do so.
The Documentary Metaphor. One interesting tool which helps you to get your interviewees familiar with the JTBD interviewing process is the documentary metaphor.
During the interviews it is your task to dig deep when you sense that your customer is talking about an important moment in their decision-making timeline. Once you spot such a moment, you will want to find out more about it by exploring the emotional, social and factual context in which it occurred. Who was with them? When did they do what and why?
You can think about it like shooting a documentary with the topic and title “How people purchased the product in the past.” You want to get the general storyline right and there will be situations which you explore with much more detail. It is as if you slowed down time in these scenes and tried to get hold of the whole situation and atmosphere for your screenplay including all the small details that let you vividly imagine it.
You can describe the documentary metaphor to your interviewees in this way:
Imagine we are shooting a documentary about how people purchased product X in the past. We will want to understand what situations led you to your decision and hear your story. In order to get the story right, we will sometimes need to zoom in on certain scenes and I will ask you detailed questions that help us construct that scene vividly. Because we are reenacting of what happened in your life, you will help us to get the screenplay right.
Ask the first question. When your interviewee feels comfortable, you want to progress to the first question, which is:
When was the time when you purchased product X?
You want to explore this moment because it helps you to prime your customer’s memory for what follows in the retrospective interview. Ask about the context in which the purchase took place. Where were you? Were you alone or with someone? What weekday was it?
Anything that puts your customer back into that switching situation and refresh her memory is great, so consider asking even seemingly ridiculous questions like: Was it warm or cold outside? Was it late? The memory is a highly associative mechanism so giving it clues can restore relevant information in surprising ways.
Get to the first thought. Once you have explored the switch moment with enough detail, it is time to try to work your way backwards to the first thought. You are looking for the first struggles, which pushed your customer to think: “I think I need something new.”
It will not be easy to get to the first thought right away and it may be that your interviewee will remember it when you are already long into the conversation. Look for decisive moments in your customer’s story and listen to details that hint at the past. You can pick it up from there and ask why the person thought like that in the moment. As memories are triggered, your customer will start remembering earlier details.
Remember that it is OK and indeed very helpful to play dumb and reiterate parts of the story. Confront your customer with how you understood the chain of events and causality of decisions that led to the switch. If they feel you didn’t get something right, they will correct you and maybe remember further details.
Take notes
It is important that you take a lot of notes during your interview. Concentrate on getting the timeline right. As a matter of fact, the timeline provides a great way to structure your interview as you move through it. I have created the following template to help you with the job.
Download the Jobs to be Done interview template to help you with taking notes
Lessons Learned
Understanding what jobs customers are hiring your or your competitor’s product and services to do is a great way to establish a starting point for innovation.
The Jobs-to-be-Done interviewing method and the Forces Diagram help you to pragmatically approach your research.
Remember that during the interviews, it is best to concentrate on understanding what happened when and why. It’s easier to analyze the forces afterwards.
To get hold of the jobs that arise in your customers’ lives:
- Interview people who recently switched
- Get their story and timeline right
- Analyze the anxieties and struggles that made them switch.
Learn more
JobsToBeDone.org — A great resource for articles and podcasts by Chris Spiek, Bob Moesta and Ervin Fowlkes
JTBD Primer — by Alan Klement
#JTBD hashtag on Medium.com and Twitter
Replacing the user story with the job story — by Alan Klement
Template for taking notes during a JTBD Interview
Thanks for reading. If it helped you, please recommend. For any questions contact me on Twitter.
