A presentation I put together in 2010 on identifying customer needs. It was part of the interview process for my current employer.

1. Customer Needs Aaron Carrano June 4, 2010

3. Conversation

5. Direct

8. Defining Customer Needs

9. Types of “Needs”

10. Types of “Needs”

11. Types of “Needs”

12. Latent Needs Needs that the user is unaware of When met, they deliver delight, exceed expectations and resonate Can be difficult to uncover Users do different things than they say Observation is best method to discover

13. Direct Needs Needs that the user directly communicates Phone, e-mail, web form, etc. Customer typically doesn’t tell you exactly what they want Need to be cautious

14. Assumed Needs Most often come from internal sources Strong possibility of being wrong

15. Balance Customer Needs Business Needs

16. Discovering Customer Needs “You’ll learn more by meeting a real, live customer and spending an hour with him than you can learn from fifty research studies or analysts’ reports” -Adrian Slywotsky, The Art of Profitability

17. Market Segmentation Before talking with customers, identify the appropriate market segment and associated user personas Align with business strategy

18. Market Segmentation n=1

19. Segmentation Before talking with customers, identify the appropriate segment n=1 or n=many n=many

20. Process

21. Observation Observe user in natural setting Remember they are “experts” Put yourself in the user’s shoes Minimize your influence on their actions Allow them to get frustrated Watch for: Workarounds Body language Anything that is surprising Anything that challenges your assumptions

22. Conversation Make the user feel as comfortable as possible Generate 2-way conversation Resist reading from a script, keep it dynamic Ask open-ended questions Make the conversation about the user and not the product Ask naïve questions to draw out responses

23. Documentation Capture EVERYTHING Take photos of the environment Document as quickly as possible after the interview/ observation Record The things that are most important to the user Expressions Direct quotes

25. Share with internal team

26. Compare notes with previous field reports

27. Identify further areas of questioning

28. Distill notes into problem statements

29. Keep solutions separate during definition of problem

30. Identify features to add or improve

31. Force-rank features based on the resources required versus the value perceived by the customer (ROI)

33. Continuous Validation Prototype Software (evolutionary or throw-away code), Foam mockup, Alpha prototype Feedback

34. Alternatively Bring users in during the validation phase of development If feedback is attained early enough, changes can still be made

35. Customer Needs “A market is never saturated with a good product, but it is very quickly saturated with a bad one” -Henry Ford Aaron Carrano June 4, 2010