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Customer-driven Innovation
Customer-driven
value innovation is not a one-time event or a slogan, it's a philosophy
and a mindset. You should live this principle daily. Analyze customer
comments to gain insight and leverage customer
feedback to ensure success.
Observe people,
live your customers' life, watch how they use your product to learn what
works and what doesn't work. Encourage
experimentation and
risk
taking. Involve everyone. Require every person, regardless of their position
to spend time on customer contact and services activities. Help your
employees to understand the customer's needs by involving them in listening
to customer feedback after a
new product launch. Ask all your employee to get on board with
customer-driven innovation. Ingrain it in your operations so deeply that is
becomes a part of DNA of your company...
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Ask Searching Questions
Searching questions can help you
discover new opportunities,
uncover the roots of a problem, and
find creative solutions
to it.
Ask your customer what they want and
find common themes in response to your questioning.
New Technology Development: Dealing
With the Fuzzy Front End
Balance
customer
feedback with your own understanding of the technology potential. Listen
to your current customers, but don't always believe them. Often the benefits
of new technology move faster than your current customers are willing to
accept. Remember however that although customers can be overly conservative,
technology push by itself rarely wins...
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Case in Point
Microsoft
"Learning from mistakes and
constantly
improving products is a key in all successful companies. Listening to
customers is a big part of that effort. You have to study what customers say
about their problems with your products and stay tuned into what they want,
extrapolating from leading-edge buyers to predict future requirements," says
Bill Gates, the Founder of Microsoft.
Case in Point
Dell
Inc.
Michael Dell
founded
Dell
Computer Corporation
I spend about 40% of my time with
customers," says
Michael Dell.4
"When you're running a company, or even a group, there are lots of ways to
spend your day. But to me, there's nothing more redeeming or refreshing than
spending time with customers. I ask lots of questions, like: "Are we doing a
good job? How do you like our products? Our service?" If it's a global
company that operates in many places around the world, I ask, "How well are
we serving you outside this country? Are there opportunities for
improvement? Is our team taking good
care of you? What are
you looking to accomplish in your company that we can help you with?" I want
to hear the truth and walk away with
a list of ideas about how we can work to make a
valued
partnership that much more significant."...
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Case in Point
Procter
& Gamble
At Procter & Gamble,
branding is
almost everything. In the age of the Web, P&G turned the
Internet into a
device for listening to customers – and for
experimenting with its brands.
"We've been voted the best marketer of the 20th century," says Greg Icenhower, an associate director of corporate communications at P&G,
referring to a ranking published by Advertising Age magazine. "But that's
because we were the biggest shouters. In the 21st century, we want to be the
best listeners."...
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Case in Point
Charles Schwab
Dave Pottruck, co-CEO of
Charles Schwab, says that most of Schwab's huge innovations have come
from asking customers questions:
Fidelity Investments
leverages the fact that it has thousands of representatives on the phone every
day talking with customers – and getting good ideas from them. Through a system
called Value Network, Fidelity gives its phone representatives a tool for
providing the organization with unsolicited customer
feedback. Representatives are encouraged, but not required, to submit issues
they recognize as relevant by recording customer suggestions and requests into a
central voice-mailbox. These comments are transcribed and passed along to the
managers responsible for various aspects of Fidelity's service. The
transcriptions are also analyzed by a central quality staff and discussed at
monthly executive meetings to make decisions about improvements that
cut
across functional and organizational lines....
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Case in Point
Burger
King Shocks Customers: No More Whoppers
Customers surveys, focus groups and sales data
can tell you some things about what customers think of your product. But how
do you really gauge how deeply your customers care about it? Burger King’s
answer was to take that product away...
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