Articles

4.6.2010 Customers Can't Be Your R&D Team

It's difficult to find a company these days that doesn't strive to be customer-driven. Too bad, then, that most companies go about the process of listening to customers all wrong - so wrong in fact, that they undermine innovation and, ultimately, the bottom line.

What usually happens is this: Companies ask their customers what they want. Customers offer solutions in form of products or services. Companies then deliver these tangibles, and customers just don't buy!

The reason is simple - customers aren't experts or informed enough to come up with solutions. That's what your R&D team is for. Rather, customers should be asked only for outcomes - what they want a new product or service to do for them. The form the solutions take should be up to you and you alone.  

B.L. 4.6.2010