Understanding Customers Better

Understanding what products consumers really want is extremely complex and cannot be found using simple survey or research methods. The main problem is that customers many times have a hard time understanding and verbalizing what they want. Apple understands this better than any company and this is why they do not do customer surveys. Apple feels they have special expertise to understand what their customers want better than they do. This is exactly the point of the article on the musician Kenna where customers when they sample his music initially don’t like it but once they actually listen to it and see him live they love it. In this case, customer data is very mis-leading.

I feel that this could be comparable to the Apple iPad. The initial reaction to the iPad compared to expectations has been fairly negative. However, it would not surprise me that once consumers actually get one in their hands and really interact with the product, it could become extremely popular. This is the case with almost any disruptive technology. Consumers have a really hard time visualizing the use of products that operates in a way that is different from what they are used to. Only a limited set of “visionaries” have the ability to do this and many times even they are wrong. I would compare Steve Jobs to the music executives in the Kenna article who have a special ear for music. Visionaries like Steve Jobs take into account the outcomes that people want instead of focusing on incremental improvements. A good example of this would be MP3 players. If you had asked users of MP3 players before the iPod existed what improvements they would like, the responses would have been “bigger hard drivers”, “higher quality headsets”, and “easier to use player interface”. Developing MP3 players based on these requirements would have lead to incrementally better MP3 players but it would not have revolutionized the MP3 player market like the iPod. Steve Jobs focused on the outcome people wanted and that was an easier to use overall music system, which included not just the physical MP3 player but also the PC software interface as well as the ability to acquire MP3s. The typical consumer would not be able to think at this high of a level and think about the entire system. However, by focusing on the outcome consumers wanted, Apple was able to develop the iPod.

Another challenge consumers have is quantifying how they feel about an existing product. I drink Coca-Cola all the time but if you were ask me how I feel about it, I would have a hard time verbalizing it. This ties in also to the Kenna article in the sense that only experts such as the food tasters can really verbalize why they like or dislike something. It takes extensive training to be able to do this. This is where I can see great value in ZMET system as it can pull out of people why they fundamentally like or dislike a product and this can help direct how the product needs to be modified or what the next generation product will look like. I do believe however this method still only works best for incremental changes. In order to develop a revolution product, companies need not listen to their customer but closely examine how their customer uses their product and for what purpose and then focus on improving the “job” the product does for the customer.