“The customer is always right” is a saying many businesses tout. One that comes to mind is Stew Leonard’s, a New England dairy store. Engraved in a large stone at the front of the store is:
Rule 1: The customer is always right.
Rule 2: If the customer is ever wrong, reread Rule 1.”
Is the customer always right? Many will tell you they are not. They might say customers behave irrationally, or they don’t know what they want.
A quote often attributed to Henry Ford goes like this: “If I asked the customer what they wanted, they’d say a faster horse”. It sounds like the customer is not always right, and they may not be, but they always know what they want. Asking the right questions helps find out what it is.
The answer to those questions, when stated in the form “Help me to… when I… so I can…” uncovers the progress a person is trying to make and converts it to a solution-agnostic opportunity statement. The basis for innovation.
Help me to…
Take the Henry Ford quote. Before the advent of the automobile, few forms of transportation existed. If you wanted to cross the country, your choices were walking, riding a bicycle, riding a horse, driving a horse-drawn carriage, taking the train, or some combination of these. The world-view of your customer only includes “products” in their current forms. When Ford asked, of course they would say “faster horse”, because in their world they could not imagine an automobile replacing a horse.
The lesson Ford’s quote teaches is; a customer can’t imagine new products based on their current worldview, nor should they be expected to speak in terms of solutions. Do not confuse this with the idea that the customer is wrong, or the customer doesn’t know what they want.
If we follow up the answer of “a faster horse” with the question “what would a faster horse allow you to accomplish?”, or “what is it you can’t do today that you could do with a faster horse?”, the result is a very different answer.
The customer is now articulating an outcome rather than a solution, which is something they know well. They might say “I’d like to get from point A to point B in less time”. Notice there is no mention of a horse, an automobile, or any other transportation solution.
The beauty of outcome-based innovation is the customer’s outcome rarely, if ever, changes, but solutions evolve with time and technology. A customer will (most of the time) want to get from point A to point B faster, more accurately, or for less money, no matter the current market solutions or available technologies. The desired outcome, reduce the time it takes to get from A to B, is what the customer wants.
Product-focused businesses tend to miss the mark because they ask the customer questions about product attributes. Ford might have asked customers, “how can I make this automobile better?”. The answers would be solution-based (which we’ve already established customers don’t have the language to articulate) rather than outcome-based. As well, solutions will be constrained to the automobile industry.
If you consider the outcomes a customer desires, solutions outside current industries arise. As products to move people from A to B evolved, automobiles were the next step in the progression. Then came airplanes, jets, and rockets. We sometimes get a glimpse of the future in Sci-Fi books or movies. Solutions like time travel and teleporters. Like those wanting a faster horse, most of us can’t imagine beyond our current world view of products and solutions, but we do know our desired outcomes.
When a new product comes along that helps us achieve our outcome faster, more accurately or cheaper, we discard the old and adopt the new. When the automobile came along, horses became obsolete, though it took decades for the transition.
When I…
If, in addition to outcomes, you ask customers about their situation or context, an idea might emerge from an unexpected direction. Asking “Under what circumstance would you need to get from point A to point B?”, a customer might say, “when I attend a business meeting.”. This is the when I… part of the opportunity statement.
If an airline has a market segment of travelers attending business meetings, it would make sense to innovate around getting this person from airport A to airport B in less time, with fewer delays, and with less fatigue. This strategy falls short because you haven’t considered the true desired outcome when innovating. There’s one more aspect to the opportunity statement.
So I can…
If you ask the customer the purpose of the business meeting, they might say “we have to come to a decision on our pricing strategy so we can move forward on this project”. This is the So I can….
Let’s say a transportation company shifts their mindset and considers themselves in the business of “people connection” rather than “people moving”. If they considered the statement “Help me to reduce the time to get from A to B when I have a business meeting so the team can make decisions”, they would first recognize that getting from A to B is not an outcome, but a solution enabling connection with business partners. A subtle change to the statement turns it into, “Help me to connect with my team when we have a decision to make so we can complete the project on time”. A statement like this would push an airline to consider solutions like telephones, Skype, or Zoom.
If an airline doesn’t innovate that far outside of its core business, they must at least recognize that telephones, Skype and Zoom are part of the competitive set. Failing to consider these can open the company up to disruption from solutions that bear no resemblance to transportation.
For a different segment, whose opportunity statement is “Help me to reduce the time to it takes to get to my granddaughter’s house, when it’s her birthday, so I can demonstrate that I love her”, the airline may be the best solution over a long distance, the automobile over a short distance, and Zoom is probably a non-starter. Asking focused questions would uncover the metrics grandma considers when deciding on a solution.
If you speak your customer’s language of outcomes, you may uncover surprising opportunities your competition, who speaks in products and solutions, will never see.