🕵️♂️ Week 19 - How to discover customer needs ?
Quote
“There’s a big difference between making a simple product & making a product simple.” Des Traynor, Co-Founder of Intercom
💯 Framework // Concept // Mental Model
Customer needs to help you build the right product that solves the problems of the users. What is the use of even building a flashy product that no one uses? Identifying user needs is a Continuous process you do it at all stages of the product from building to the growing product. There could also be a lot of pitfalls in the process.
Different types of discovery methods
Interview: setting up interviews with current or potential customers where you ask them questions about their customer journey and use cases from which you generate insight on the pain points, frustrations, and problems the customer has.
Example: Lets assume facebook as a product and you are interviewing facebook user's. here is a question you might ask users " if you want to change something on the facebook app what would that be"
Observe: Sometimes users might not know or are not able to articulate what their needs and pain points are, it always helps you to see how your users are engaging and using your products.
Example: Lets assume facebook as a product and you are observing facebook users. On observation you find out that there are users who just use facebook for marketplace and use no other features thats a valuable insight which you can dig deeper into.
Focus groups: Interviews might give you high-level problems but focus groups are a great resource for understanding the depth and fine details of the problems
Frameworks
There is no size-fit solution for understanding user needs, the frameworks you use depend on what you are building and what type of users are you talking to. Here are some examples of frameworks that are used for the discovery of customer needs.
Jobs to be done: developing products based on understanding both the customer's specific goal or “job,” and the thought processes that would lead that customer to “hire” a product to complete the job.
Zoom Connecting Remote Workers
PayPal: Providing a Secure Way to Make Online Payments
Nike: Serving the Needs of Runners
Empathy mapping: Visualizing user attitudes and behaviors in an empathy map helps with a deep understanding of end users. in empathy mapping, u capture what the user says thinks does, and feels.
Says: I want something reliable
Thinks: This is really annoying
Does: Refreshes page several times
Feels -Impatient: pages load too slowly
User journey mapping: A journey map is a visualization of the process that a person goes through in order to accomplish a goal. Mapping the whole customer journey helps you to identify pain points or steps that cause friction for the customer.
Advantages of continuous discovery
Helps you stay relevant to what the customer needs
Continuous value is being added to your products
You can easily evaluate risk/value vs cost
Pitfalls of user needs discovery
Not digging deep enough to understand the root problem
Conducting user interviews with a bias toward a solution
Not picking the right customer segment
Resources for the continuous discovery of customer needs
https://www.amazon.com/Continuous-Discovery-Habits-Discover-Products/dp/B09XYX49KX/ref=sr_1_1?crid=2Z1O68ZVYKQX9&keywords=continuous+discovery+habits&qid=1658093731&sprefix=continuous+discovery+habits%2Caps%2C298&sr=8-1
References
https://www.bonnevillebayarea.com/blog/effective-ways-to-identify-and-meet-consumer-needs
https://www.nngroup.com/articles/empathy-mapping/
https://delighted.com/blog/guide-to-customer-journey-mappin
📚 Book
The best product teams adopt a continuous mindset when it comes to discovery this book gives a structured approach towards discovery.
The book lists six mindsets that must be cultivated to successfully adopt the continuous discovery
Outcome-oriented — This mindset is all about shifting from a focus on the code shipped (‘output’) to constantly driving the value that the code creates for customers and the business (‘outcomes’).
Customer-centric — The customer is at the centre of our world. It requires us to not lose sight of the primary purpose of a business: to create and serve a customer.
Collaborative — This mindset requires us to embrace the cross functional nature of product work and reject the siloed model, where we hand off deliverables through stage gates.
Visual — In the book, Torres provides readers with practical ways to express our thoughts differently. So many businesses tend to use PowerPoint and Word documents as prevailing communication methods. Instead, the visual mindset that Torres advocates encourages us to draw, externalize our thinking and map what we know.
Experimental — How can we best develop and hone an experimental mindset? Something that I personally refer to as a “try and learn” approach.
Continuous — Rather than thinking about discovery as something that we that do at the beginning of a project, Torres encourages us to infuse discovery continuously throughout the product development process.
🎧 Podcast:
Teresa Torres: How to Identify and Test Your Solution Assumptions
Teresa is a product discovery coach who talks about continuous discovery, creating value, experimentation etc. She teaches a structured and sustainable approach to continuous discovery and helps product teams to infuse their daily product decision with customer inputs.
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