voice of the customer - lecture 21 voice-of-the-customer – lecture 2 how to interview a customer...

Voice of the Customer - Lecture 2 1

Voice-Of-The-Customer – Lecture 2

How to Interview a Customer

© 2009 ~ Mark Polczynski


Scenario Planning

IntellectualProperty

Generation

TechnologyRoadmappi

ng

Voiceof the

Customer

NewConceptIdeation

An Integrated Strategic Technology Planningand Development Environment


We just completedQFD Phase 1

Phase 1


The Customer Interview ProcessThe process of interviewing customers is the most important

element of the overall Voice-of-the-Customer element of strategic technology planning.

A poor interview process:

• Generates bad input, making the rest of your efforts a waste of time,

• Can raise false expectations in your customer,

• Can drive customers away from you.

Conversely, a good interview process:

• Sets the correct direction for all other processes,

• Pro-actively clarifies expectations,

• Can bind you closely together with your customer (“partner”).

Psychological impact

Psychological impact


Why we need a process:

• It is especially important for technologists to develop strong customer interview skills:

• Technology is an important potential source of solutions,

• And since technologists will be the ones often solving the problems, it is best for them to learn the problems directly from customers,

• Plus they can discover new needs that others don’t see,

• But in general, technologists may lack the “people skills” needed to conduct good interviews.

• They can easily create false expectations for customers.

• Establishing a systematic process for interviewing customerscan help!


Return to the “Perfect Mousetrap” example…

• You are a brand new engineer just hired by Acme Trap Company.

• Your company makes all kinds of animal traps.

• Your very first assignment is to design the next generation product line for your company.

• Your first task is to interview customers to determine WHAT features your new trap family will have.

• So, let’s get started!


Based on the customer interviews, your job is to fill in these boxes:


Acme Market Segmentation

You will focus on small animal(rat and mouse) kill traps for use inwarehouses where grain is stored,like in the movie...

Acme Trap Co. Large Animal Small Animal

Kill Traps Fur hunters Households, food industry

Live traps Zoos, naturalists

Grain warehouse

s


Our focus area:

Small animal kill traps for grain warehouses

So now we’re ready to do the customer interview…


Customer interviews can be done in four steps:

3 1 2 4


Customer Interview Process – Step 1.1

General Customer Needs -

For the field of use and application (market segment) being focused on, determine customer needs. Use the following guideline questions (add/change/delete as appropriate):

• Why? Why is this this product/service needed?

• What? What specifically will it be used for?

• Who? Who does/will/could use it?

• When? When does/will it be used?

• Where? Where will it be used?

• How? How will it be used?Make a

checklist!


Customer Interview Process – Step 1.2

Specific Customer Needs -

Determine what specific attributes that the product must have. Typical areas of needs are:

• Performance – What exactly does the customer need it do?

• Quality/Reliability – How well must it do it?

• “User Interface” – How will the user interact with it?

• Cost – How sensitive to cost is it?

• Regulation – Is its use or design regulated in any way?

As you obtain input, use the “5 Whys” approach to drill down into needs.

Make achecklist!


The 5 Whys Approach

• You ask a customer a question.

• They give you an answer.

• You ask: “Why do you need that?”


• You ask: “Why do you need that?”


• You ask “Why do you need that” five times.

• This gets you to the root cause.


Interview with Grain Warehouse Owner:

• You: So, how important is reliability of the mouse trap to you?

• Customer: It is very important!

• You: Why is it so important?

• Customer: Because I don’t have any way to repair them.

• You: But they are simple to repair, so why don’t you fix them?

• Customer: Because I have nobody to repair them.

• You: But any idiot can repair them! Why don’t you have anyone?

• Customer: My warehouse is a totally automated “lights-out” warehouse, there ARE no people in the warehouse!

• You: So, who is going to take the dead rats out of the trap?

• Customer: Good question!


Why the Five Whys Technique is Useful…

• For this example, by the fifth question we learned some very important points:

• There’s no-one around to fix the traps, and

• There’s no-one around to remove the dead rats, and

• There’s no-one around to re-bait and re-set the traps!

• So, it looks like we need a trap: ~ That doesn’t need to be manually re-baited and reset, ~ That somehow gets rid of the dead rats.

• Sounds like a great topic for an ideation session?


You now have enough information to complete the Step 1 box:

1

Now we can change these to:

• Self-baiting• Self-setting• Self-cleaning


What Next?

• When you complete this step, you may choose to continue with the following three steps.

• Continue the interview only if you can write short, clear customer need statements.

• Or, you may choose to conclude the interview to go home and document the results, and then return for a second interview.

• At the first interview, you may obtain very much information, or conflicting information, which makes it difficult to write the customer needs statements at the interview.


Step 2 is to determine customer importanceof each of the needs…

2


Customer Interview Process – Step 2

Customer Need Importance -

• At this point, specific customer need statements have been prepared.

• Customer is asked to confirm need statements:“Did I understand what you said?”

• Customer then ranks the needs in order from 1 = most important, 2 = second most important, etc…


Customer Need Importance:

• Customers may find it difficult to rank the importance of needs in first, second, third… order.

• They may want to rank everything #1.

• And they may disagree among themselves as to which is most important.

• This part of the interview may take a lot of time!

• The customer will learn more about their own needs by doing this.

• In the end, these interviews can be just as helpful to customers as they are to you.

• So, you should always give the results to your customer.

• But if at all possible, get a 1, 2, 3… ranked priority for needs!


The Bubble Sort

Here’s a simple technique for forcing a 1, 2, 3… ranking on needs.

• For the first two needs on the list, ask the customer which is more important.

• If the second is more important, move it up one place,

• If not, leave both where they are.

• Repeat for the second and third needs, then the third and fourth, etc…

• After you get to the bottom, go through the list again.

• Repeat this until no need swap positions on the list.


Customer need ACustomer need BCustomer need CCustomer need D

…Customer need Z

Bubble Sort:

Swap?

Swap?

Swap?Repeatuntilnothing changes


Now Step 3…

3


Step 3 – Interactions Between Customer Needs

• Here, you compare all the needs as pairs,

• e.g.: kills quickly vs. easy to set.

• The question is: If I design the product to do X well, does that make it harder or easier to do Y?

• e.g.: If I design a mousetrap that kills quickly, will that make it easy to set, or hard to set?

• It will probably make it hard to set.

• So this is a negative interaction.


It is important to do this step with the customer:

• When they see the interactions, they may choose to change the ranking of their needs (e.g., repeat the Bubble Sort).

• It helps to control expectations:

• If they see many negative correlations, they will know why the product will cost a lot and take a long time to design.


It is important to do this step with the customer:

It will clarify assumptions about the product:

• You assume the trap has a spring in it,

• The larger the spring, the greater the killing force (good),

• But the larger the spring, the greater the setting force (bad).

• So, how can we do this without a spring?

• Negative correlations and the associated assumptions are great

topics for ideation sessions!

• By the way, identification of contradictions is a fundamental

aspect of TRIZ (Theory of Inventive Problem Solving).


Finally, Step 4:

4


Step 4 – Customer Assessment

• Here, the customer compares your products with your competitor’s products.

• Comparison question to the customer can be quite simple:Compared to my competitor’s product/service, my offering is:

5 = Much better4 = Better3 = Similar2 = Worse1 = Much Worse

• If you don’t have an offering at the time of the interview, - or of the customer has never seen your product, - or if you don’t have any competitors, - then you can’t do a direct comparison, - so the comparison is made with customer’s ideal performance.


Three example questions:

• You have a competitor (Ace Traps):

Compared to Ace Traps, how easy to set is my Acme trap?

• You have no competitor:

Compared to the “perfect trap”, how easy to set is my Acme trap?

• The customer has never seen your product:

Compared to the “perfect trap”, how easy to set is the Ace trap?

• Answers to all questions are still:

Much Better, Better, Similar, Worse, Much Worse


Step 4 – Customer Assessment

• This is the first time in the interview that you talk about products.

• Here, the customer compares your products with your competitor’s products.

• This is about perceptions, not about reality.

• Don’t argue with your customer, just record their assessment!

• Yu are not selling your products at this meeting!

• You are learning what your customer thinks.

• If you want to change what your customer thinks, that is a different meeting.

• You will not be invited back if your interview turns into a sales call.


Tip…

If your view of how your product measures up to customer expectations differs from that of your customer, an appropriate response from you would be:

“I have some test data that clearly shows that Acme mouse traps have a setting force significantly lower that Ace traps. Can we set up a meeting next week so that I can share that data with you?”

If you don’t have the data, you better get it.

If your trap is, in fact, inferior to your competitors, best to go on to the next need ASAP.


You have completed the customer interview!

3 1 2 4

voice of the customer - lecture 21 voice-of-the-customer – lecture 2 how to interview a customer...

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