In Level 1, you start with your ideas and launch products you think customers will want. In Level 2, you still start with your ideas, but “validate” them with customers. In Level 3, you start with customer needs, using divergent and convergent interviews. You uncover a full range of outcomes and only work on those customers care about.
More in white paper, Guessing at Customer Needs (page 7).
If you focus on unimportant outcomes, customers will greet your new product with a collective yawn. If you satisfy outcomes competitors already meet, customers will greet you with a phone call requesting lower prices. How long will this take them? Depends if they have you on speed dial.
More in article, Your Best Path to Profitable, Sustainable Organic Growth
You want to get the right B2B interviewees in the room, but setting up great interviews can be tough. Interviewees may think… “I’m too busy… I don’t want to discuss confidential information… I can’t be bothered by a boring survey… I’ll bet they just want to sell me something.” Knowing how to overcome objections is as important a competitive edge as the interviewing skills themselves.
More in article, 9 Best Practices for Recruiting Customers
When you launch a product, do customers instantly begin buying? Or do they need months of deliberation? Start them deliberating well before your launch with engaging interviews and follow-up. Customers will help you make course corrections for a better new product… and when you’re ready to sell, they’ll be ready to buy much faster.
More in article, The Missing Objective in B2B VOC
In the last century, Detroit automakers fell behind Japanese competitors in the Quality Wave. Later, we saw winners and losers in the Productivity Wave. We’re now in the Innovation Wave, with huge consequences. Some B2B companies will win by moving innovation from “hope” into a new science.
More in white paper, Catch the Innovation Wave