Debunking Myths About Customer Needs
Lance Bettencourt
Feb 1, 2009
February 2009, American Marketing Association
In this thoughtful article published by the American Marketing Association, Lance Bettencourt discusses the five myths about innovation that undermine the execution of the innovation process. Bettencourt believes that even though the front end of innovation has seen its own set of process challenges, companies can still forge successful innovation initiatives by forming correct beliefs about customer needs -- and their true value in the innovation process.
In an engaging, well-written and through-provoking manner, Bettencourt tackles the following five myths about innovation:
- Customers can't articulate their needs
- Customers don't know what they need
- Different customers, different needs
- Customer needs change quickly over time
- Customer needs differ by organization purpose
You often hear discussions about unarticulated needs or latent needs. Bettencourt says there is no such thing. He argues that this thinking is perpetuated by innovation success stories such as the microwave, the Sony Walkman and the Apple iPod or iPhone. The story goes something like this, he says: “If you had asked customers, they couldn’t have told you they needed the iPhone. Therefore, it must be true that customers cannot articulate what they need.”
But Bettencourt argues that as brilliant as the iPhone might be, it is not a customer need - it is a solution to a customer need. When companies get solutions and customer needs confused, he says, it confuses the role of the customer and the company in the innovation process. Customers articulate their needs; it is up to the company to create a solution, he says.
He also levels arguments against the thinking that different customers have different needs, that customer needs change quickly over time and that customer needs differ by organizational purpose. Not so, he says, using convincing examples from his own experience using the jobs-to-be-done innovation framework.
Bettencourt believes that a properly-defined customer need statement is a solution to much of what ails the innovation process today. Find out more about the myths of innovation and the role that customer needs play in a successful innovation process.
