What should you ask your customers? And what not to ask?
How do you talk to your customers? What do you ask? As you ask, you get answers according to the saying. Are there better and worse conversations, better and worse topics? A small guide to get the most out of your customer talks.
A short story about the Sony Walkman
In the late 1970s, Sony founder Masaru Ibuka asked his chief developer Kozo Ohsone to develop a portable tape player. Ibuku was a devoted opera fan and wanted a music player for his flights between Japan and the US. Ohsone and his development team produced a great little player with stereo, headphones, microphone and recording capabilities.
When Sony's then-CEO and co-founder Akio Morito was shown the tape player, he said. “This player is too complicated. We are going to remove the microphone and the recording capability. Today's young people want to listen to music all the time everywhere. They don't care about being able to record anything.”
A large customer survey was conducted where it turned out that basically no one wanted a machine where you could walk around and listen to music. Then Morito replied: “You can't ask people about something that doesn't exist. They cannot understand the need unless they see the product.” After that the product was launched and Sony never researched the market for new products.
What should you ask your customers?
What one learns from the above story is two things. The demand is not always for the best we can do. And above all. You can't ask customers about something that doesn't exist. On the other hand, you can ask customers about the development of things that exist, new functions and changes to existing products. Sony released its original cassette player with recording about ten years after the first Walkman. By then the market was ripe and recording had started to be in demand. So development can be bringing out the original idea that was scaled down to create a basic market.
It is becoming increasingly common to involve their customers in business and product development. It's about preferences, choices, hypotheses and customer experiences.
How to ask your customers?
If you want new ideas, you should ask open questions456 / 5 000 Översättningsresultat Översättningsresultat star_border . Questions that require thought and a bit of analysis. The answers obviously become more difficult to group, analyze and prioritize. But there is plenty of space to capture thoughts and ideas that are otherwise easy to miss. Early in the process, you need to ask open questions. It is also possible to come up with follow-up questions which are often the key to understanding why. It doesn't have to be more difficult than an invitation to tell more or a question about why they think something.
When you start approaching solutions, it can be an advantage to have simpler multiple-choice questions to get a statistical basis for different choices. This often requires the opportunity to try different solutions or flavors. In A/B testing, you need a few simple questions to get the answers in the right area. But even here it is good to have open follow-up questions about why. There may be a third, completely different solution that is even better or even more important.
Ask questions with the right perspective.
When talking to your customers, it is better to talk about their challenges instead of your product or service. Try to bring the conversation to specific things in their everyday life instead of general opinions. And finally...listen before you speak and come up with solutions.
Do you want to know more about how good conversations can help you in business development? Get in touch with klas @ kip.se
