What do customers want?

- One of the most important yet most difficult question to answer when innovating a service is what do customers really want? A common mistake in answering this question is to go through all the elements of your current service and ask where you can improve them. Don't get me wrong, I'm not against improving the service but in order to achieve breakthrough innovations we need to do more than just improve single elements or attributes. Unfortunately most of the customer surveys we see today are trying to do just that, evaluate customer satisfaction based on current attributes. Henry Ford, a pioneer in the automotive industry, once said, "If I had asked the people what they wanted, "they would have said, 'a faster horse.'" Think about this in relation to a tax accountant as a professional service provider. What do customers want from a tax accountant? Very rarely would someone say, "I want to pay more taxes." No some may say, "I want to pay fewer taxes." And some would even say, "I want to pay no tax, "without going to prison." Being from Switzerland myself I don't want to elaborate on that question but what is it that we want from a tax accountant? Maybe it's piece of mind, or maybe it's predictability, or for many of us maybe it's saving time. In order to successfully innovate service we need a very clear and systematic understanding of what we do and how the customer benefits from it. This relationship is at the core of any successful innovation. For example, if the bank offers a drive-through ATM, which is an attribute, the benefit to the customer might be that the bank helps them to save time. If the bank stays open until 10 p.m. they are meeting the customer's need for convenient hours of service. What about the phone company? If they offer a better mobile network coverage it increases accessibility for customers. In air travel the flat beds in business class allow the customers to arrive more relaxed. Similarly in a business-to-business setting if the machine manufacturer offers training to its clients the clients' benefit is higher productivity. Please note that there are often more than one relationship between the attributes and the benefits. For example, a drive-through ATM may not only offer time savings but also safety. Or it increases personal mobility and freedom for handicapped customers who cannot walk to the bank. When you meet with customers to find out what they really want it is helpful to take notes, separating attributes on the left side and the benefits on the right side. When you see that your customers mention many attributes but no benefits you need to ask them, "Why is this important to you?" For example, "Why is the drive-through ATM "important to you?" A parent may answer that it offers a huge convenience when he or she is driving somewhere with the kids in the car. Getting the kids out of the car to withdraw $40 can be quite the project. In the opposite, when the customers mention benefits you need to ask how these benefits are achieved. A business traveler is telling you that she likes to take the red-eye flight from New York to Surrey and then go straight to a meeting. If you ask her how the carrier helps her to do that she might refer to the arrival lounge where she can take a shower and eat breakfast. To conclude, successful service innovations are based on a deeper understanding of what customers really want. Entrepreneurs and executives need to think about the attributes of the product or service in conjunction with the benefits the customer wants.