Consider this logic chain for growth: A) Your only path to profitable, sustainable growth in in creating customer value. B) The only way to create customer value is by improving important, unmet customer outcomes. C) Most companies do a poor job today of identifying which customer outcomes to improve. D) Proven methods are now available to confidently target a market’s important, unmet outcomes. ... Read More
“The Voice of the Customer”, an article by Abbie Griffin and John Hauser from 1993, joined the parallel worlds of academic market research with the practical discipline of new product development. As such, “The Voice of the Customer” built upon the leading framework at the time for building new products, QFD. (“QFD”, or “Quality Function ... Read More
Most B2B companies waste millions of dollars in failed product development. This often isn’t because their scientists can’t come up with good answers… but rather they’re working on the wrong questions. Good customer insight lets you move into the Non-Obvious zone, working on customer problems your competitors miss. ... Read More
More than anything else, short time horizons restrain B2B organic growth. And this leads to “internal friction” in your growth machine, specifically in 4 areas: 1) available time, 2) required skills, 3) team motivation, and 4) organizational disruptions. ... Read More
If you sell into a concentrated B2B market (one with just a few customers), your voice-of-customer interviews should have two goals: “insight” plus “engagement.” The latter is important: You want these big customers to be impressed and eager to work with you, not your competitors.
These 10 approaches help you engage your customers when interviewing them to understand their needs: 1) Kill the questionnaire. 2) Let customers lead the interview. 3) Discuss their job-to-be-done. 4) Project your notes so they can see them. 5) Focus on customer outcomes. 6) Learn how to probe deeply. 7) Don’t sell or solve. 8) Get quantitative in your VOC. 9) Use triggers to generate fresh ideas. 10) Use B2B-optimized interview tools. (See the 2-minute video, Engage your B2B customers.)
These are explained in the article, The Missing Objective in Voice of Customer Interviews
Portfolio management links strategy with execution for new product development. A Voice of the Customer program maximizes ROI for all new product initiatives, whether incremental or breakthrough. ... Read More
To move from supplier- to customer-centric innovation, B2B producers should shift their thinking in four areas: 1) new markets to new supplier, 2) validating hypotheses to uncovering outcomes, 3) competitive products to customer alternatives, and 4) competitive pricing to value creation. ... Read More
If you haven’t explored Design Thinking for your product development yet, I highly recommend you do. It brings seven important benefits: 1) stronger value propositions, 2) rapid customer insight, 3) improved customer engagement, 4) potential for transformational innovation, 5) less squandered R&D, 6) reduced commercial risk, and 7) the erosion of functional silos.
But if you’re a B2B company, don’t simply use Design Thinking as it’s taught in design schools. You can optimize it for B2B, especially the first two steps, “empathize” and “design”… using B2B-optimized Discovery and Preference interviews.
More in white paper, Design Thinking Optimized for B2B
Far too many B2B customers are still using “Voice of Ourselves” for product development. Diagnose your VOO vs. VOC behavior in 10 areas: 1) interview scope, 2) interview objective, 3) types of questions, 4) note-taking, 5) interview skills, 6) observation skills, 7) companies interviewed, 8) deliverables, 9) engagement timeframe, and 10) interviewing staff. ... Read More
Are there times when you should use an outside firm—”a hired gun”—to conduct your interviews? Consider 4 factors: 1) Hired guns work well if you have a big budget and success is all about this very large product launch. 2) If you have millions of prospects, outside expertise can manage the sophisticated surveys and statistics needed. 3) If you don’t need to gain deep, first-hand insights, a marketing firm’s report is fine. 4) If you’re not already spending much direct face-time with customers, let a marketing firm conduct this market research.
In general, though, when you’re serious about bringing real innovation to a targeted market segment, your people should do the heavy lifting. Understanding market needs is a competitive advantage you shouldn’t try to outsource.
For more, see 2-minute video, When to use “hired guns” for VOC
Henry Ford is often cited for a reason to not interview customers: “If I’d asked my customers what they wanted, they would have told me a faster horse.” But this is flawed thinking for B2B markets. There are indeed B2C cases where customers can’t tell you much about their needs. Ask me what I want in a video game, men’s suit, or snack food, and I’ll probably need to see a prototype. Then I can play with it, try it on, or taste it (hopefully in that order).
Besides, B2C company employees are end-consumers themselves… so they’ve already got a good idea what consumers want. Bottom line: Your B2B customer can absolutely tell you the outcomes they want (desired end results). Once you know the “what,” it’s up to you to figure out the “how” (your new product solution).
For more, see 2-minute video, Avoid the faster horse fallacy
A missile strike? Well, that sounds a bit aggressive, doesn’t it? But consider the two targeting steps you’d take in the military, before firing those missiles: 1) survey all possible enemy positions, and then 2) isolate the high-value targets. You should do the same in the front-end of innovation, before the development stage: “Step 1” ... Read More
Design thinking is a powerful methodology for solving “wicked problems.” Unlike the well-stated problems we were given to solve in engineering school, these require figuring out what to work on, not just how to solve the problem. This perfectly describes real-world new product innovation, where we need to first understand customer needs.
As this diagram shows, the first two steps are “empathize” and “define.” Here’s the good news for B2B producers: You can do this much more effectively that B2C counterparts by using Discovery interviews (for “empathize”) and Preference interviews (for “define”). Check out this white paper to see why… and how: Design Thinking for B2B
In general, we do consider in-person interviews to be the gold standard. But there are 10 advantages of virtual VOC you shouldn’t overlook: 1) lower cost, 2) reaching dispersed customers, 3) viewable probing tips, 4) training for colleagues, 5) probing suggestions, 6) assistance for note-taker, 7) rapid de-briefing, 8) easier scheduling, 9) low-impact cancellations, and 10) greater project speed. To maximize effectiveness and efficiency, you’ll be wise to blend and balance both types of VOC. (See 2-minute video, Conduct virtual customer interviews.)
More in white paper, Virtual VOC