Is your business customer centric or process driven?

Many times in business people already have a product or service developed and then they go and try to find a market that fits their product/ service. We hear stories of companies who continually push a product/ service and then can't understand why it won't sell. They have a great process in place, a wonderful product/ service (in their eyes), completely understand the product/ service capabilities, but one thing lacks - they forgot to ask the customer. I refer to this as product centric thinking.

A business that follows this process focuses its time, energy, and money into creating products/ services with fantastic features and benefits for an undifferentiated consumer market whose actual experienced outcomes are greatly unknown. There is no iterative process.

Let's flip it around and put the customer first. Whether in start-up or growth it is important to know your market, what the consumer pain points are, and develop or adapt your product/ service to resolve them. By starting with the customer, you will save a lot of time, money and energy in the process and therefore create stronger efficiencies throughout your organization. This, I refer to as customer centric thinking.

In this model, a business begins by understanding the experienced outcomes expected by different customers. They can then translate these into strongly correlated features, benefits, and expectations, meaning they produce their product/ service at a lower cost, with short cycle time, superior diversity, and consistent performance. This model involves a double iterative process (demonstrated by the arrows).

But how do we do this? One of the main points I always raise in consultations is before you do anything, ask your customers (in particular your loyal ones). Host focus groups and allow them to provide you with feedback on your product/ service. By doing this you are going to get direct feedback from the end user, and possibly, because they have been part of the process, they will become champions of your product/ service - a very powerful marketing tool.

Organizations who are excellent at customer centric thinking are car manufacturers. At every major car show, they will have a prototype on display for customers to touch, feel, and view. The potential end user provides critical feedback before it is put on the production line. How many times do we see a model on display but it never makes the market because of the consumer feedback ? Toyota is doing this - they are manufacturing their cars based on what customers told them, not what Toyota people think looks great.

A smart example of the power of involving the customer from the very beginning.