Assumptions about Customers Can Make an “Ass” of “U” and “Me”

This was atypical. Most companies know their customers well enough to be firmly on target, with just an occasional wild shot. For example, a financial institution we worked with brought in a group of high-value investors to figure out what online services could be offered to them exclusively (not for the hoi polloi) that they would value--and that could be an incentive for slightly lower-level investors to increase their activity. The firm had already been hard at work on several services and online applications, but waited to see what the investors came up with in hopes that it would validate their work to date.

I must say, the company had done a great job. Almost all of the services and apps in the works matched closely with the desires and needs that the customers surfaced. Sure, some needed fine tuning based on customer input. But there was one major application that was far along in development (and investment) that didn’t address any of the customers’ priorities or even the fantasy wish list.

The frustrated “owners” of this app kept throwing in questions and suggestions in hopes that the customers would say anything that remotely related to this service, but it just wasn’t happening. Finally, they asked point blank if the customers would like to have this capability. The customer team looked blankly at each other and said something like, “Well, if it is there, we won’t mind.”

The lesson: the company had made a large investment in time, resources, and money working on an application that didn’t matter to customers. They had made an assumption that customers would love the capability, but they didn’t validate that assumption with customers until it was too late to go back.

Whether you use our Customer Co-Design approach or another method for working with customers, you need to check out your assumptions before you start building. In fact, you should engage with customers early enough in any new product or business model endeavor so that you aren’t working on assumptions, but on real user experience research and results. Save your organization time and money; and save your developers, who put their hearts and souls into creating products, the heartbreak of a product or service that nobody wants or, just as sad, are just slightly off target—just enough to seduce customers into trying and buying, but then are abandoned or underused.