Design the product around the customer

“Build it and they’ll come.” Well, they might…or they might not. It depends whether “they” want to.

The days of creating a mediocre product or service then throwing some money at an advertising campaign are long gone. The customers of today are far better informed as to their wants and preferences. They can tell the difference between a product that’s created to make money (i.e. supplier centric) and a product that’s created to satisfy a need (customer centric).

Any new product or service idea should emanate from a particular customer insight and ideally designed using customer input.

A nice way to check your focus is to see how well you can answer the following questions:

1. What problem(s) is the product/service solving?
2. What are the frustrations that customers typically experience when buying and using these sort of products?
3. How does your product address those frustrations?
4. What feedback did you get when you launched the first iteration of the product (MVP or minimum viable product) with a select group of customers?
5. What aspects of that feedback have been built into the next version?

It is often a surprise to a supplier when a beautifully designed product receives a luke warm response from the target market. The trick is to engage the target market early in the design, or even before the design starts and build the product around the needs of the potential customer.

Good luck.

http://www.paulhopwoodconsulting.co.uk