Want True Innovation? BE Your Customer!
It seems like every company has Innovation as an objective. For some companies, it is an aspirational goal and others have a formal, structured process in place. For over 25 years, I have been engaged in Innovation. I use a capital “I” because I believe Innovation is its own discipline that requires a unique skill set. I have led Innovation teams and initiatives in both large and small companies. The one thing that I have repeatedly found is that the best innovative products and/or services are often found in the simplest yet most overlooked sources of information…customers!
When first working with a company, I often ask where their pipeline of ideas has come from. “Customer feedback,” is the most common response. In general, companies believe that they have a comprehensive understanding of their market and their customers. Market research, customer surveys and detailed information from call logs can form a picture of what customers think and feel about your product. This IS valuable and integral information. However, as Marketers, we often get so wrapped up in all the data about our customers that we forget to step back and truly BE the customer.
Years ago, when I started my career, I was leading a project surrounding a specific holiday season and what was happening in our retail channel during that season. I quickly discovered that the people engaged in this process had very little firsthand experience inside one of our retail stores during this timeframe. They typically made their purchases at the company store at our headquarters. They relied on the data that our research group provided about our customers and their experiences to make decisions.
I decided to shake things up a bit. I asked for and received approval for our department to take an afternoon “field trip.” I divided the group into teams that were each given three envelopes and three different retail locations with one of our stores being the final one. The two other retailers were in completely unrelated categories to our business. They were not to open the envelopes until they got to their destinations. Each envelope contained a gift purchasing scenario for a very specific recipient. Each group had to complete a survey about their experience from the time they entered the store, throughout the search for the specific gift and ending with their checkout experience. The next day the group reconvened to compare notes.
It was an insightful endeavor for everyone! Some confessed it had been years since they had hunted for something in one of our stores. Others compared the differences in how they were treated as customers in each environment. By truly becoming our customers and experiencing things the way our customers did every day, both in our store and others, we could see opportunities for innovation in multiple areas.
When is the last time you became your customer??? Don’t fake it…have an authentic experience from start to finish with your product or service. Would you want to repeat the experience? What would make it better? More memorable? Worth sharing with others? BE your customer and you might just find the innovation opportunities that will make a true impact on your growth.
Keri Lauderdale Olson is the CEO of Idea Origins, a Strategic Marketing Consultantcy that helps companies identify new ways to think about and grow their business. An inventor on multiple patents, she has over 25 years of experience leading teams to identify consumer needs and delivering solutions that meet them.