What Customers WantHow to turn insights about your customers into products they love

Kent Rahman | Product Design and Strategy

Customers want to achieve their goals

Products and services are the interface between a customer and their goals

They facilitate a customer’s ability to achieve their goals

Great products are both useful and usable

helping to do or achieve something

The extent to which a product can be used by specified users to achieve specified goals with effectiveness, efficiency and satisfaction in a specified context of use.

If I had an hour to solve a problem I’d spend 55 minutes thinking about solutions and 5 minutes thinking about the problem...

If I had an hour to solve a problem I’d spend 55 minutes thinking about the problem and 5 minutes thinking about solutions

- Einstein

Usability

Use

fuln

ess

1

Identify the problem

Collect information

Form a hypothesis

Experiment

Analyze the data

Draw a conclusion 2

3

4

5

6

1

Identify the problem

Collect information

Experiment

Analyze the data

Draw a conclusion 2

3

4

5

6

Form a hypothesis

BUILD

1

Identify the problem

Collect information

Experiment

Analyze the data

Draw a conclusion 2

3

4

5

6

Form a hypothesis

MEASURE

1

Identify the problem

Collect information

Experiment

Analyze the data

Draw a conclusion 2

3

4

5

6

Form a hypothesis

LEARN

Who are our customers?What problems are they trying to solve?What factors influence their behavior?

How might we help our customers solve their problems?

Can our customers solve their problems

effectively?

EXPLORING A PROBLEM

VALIDATING SOLUTIONS

USABILITY

Ex - Large financial institution - lots of tools - all the feedback was that their sales people hated the tools, it was difficult to use, etc. Their users (Sales) gave them feedback by recommending improvements within the context of existing solutions. Improvements to existing systems still did little to increase adoption. So what to do?

The challenge

● Large Wall Street firm

● Sales team frustrated with software

● Antagonistic relationship with Marketing

● Internal attempts to improve technology were going nowhere

Ex - Large financial institution - lots of tools - all the feedback was that their sales people hated the tools, it was difficult to use, etc. Their users (Sales) gave them feedback by recommending improvements within the context of existing solutions. Improvements to existing systems still did little to increase adoption. So what to do?

What we did

● Small cross functional team

● 5 prototypes in 6 weeks

● Re-imagined the way their Sales teams use technology

● Radically changed the way Marketing thinks about internal product development

1

Identify the problem

Collect information

Experiment

Analyze the data

Draw a conclusion 2

3

4

5

6

Form a hypothesis

Who are our customers?What problems are they trying to solve?What factors influence their behavior?

How might we help our customers solve their problems?

Can our customers solve their problems

effectively?

EXPLORING A PROBLEM

VALIDATING SOLUTIONS

USABILITY

Tactics• Ethnography• Ride-alongs• Diary studies• Interviews• Market research• Demographic research

Outcomes• Opportunities• Patterns of behavior• Goals• Motivations• Frustrations• Process maps

Goal #1 - Ensure the team has all the necessary information regarding this client

Weeks before a meeting

Create and curate a detailed, comprehensive view of the Client and the information needed for the meeting with that client.

Goal # 2 - Ensure that all the client information is accurate and up to date before client meeting

Days before a meeting

Do an in-depth review of a Client the day before before a meeting.

Goal #3 - Ensure key information is top of mind during the client meeting

Minutes before a meeting

Quickly refresh Sales person’s memory by reviewing critical details about the Client they are about to meet.

System 1 System 2 System 3

Preparing for a client meeting

Opportunity #1Time consuming and difficult to see the full client context

Opportunity #2Information on funds is out of date, stored in various

sources

Opportunity #3Information requirements are time and context sensitive

Opportunities

1

Identify the problem

Collect information

Experiment

Analyze the data

Draw a conclusion 2

3

4

5

6

Form a hypothesis

Who are our customers?What problems are they trying to solve?What factors influence their behavior?

How might we help our customers solve their problems?

Can our customers solve their problems

effectively?

EXPLORING A PROBLEM

VALIDATING SOLUTIONS

USABILITY

Tactics• Hypothesis generation• Lo-fi prototyping• Iterative experimentation• Collaborative sketching

Outcomes● Validated value

propositions

● Hi - fi prototypes

● User stories (sometimes)

Hypothesis We believe that by providing a holistic, context specific client view, the sales team will be better able to prepare and conduct client meetings. We will know this is true when we see an increase in usage of these tools by the sales team.

Opportunities Hypotheses

Who are our customers?What problems are they trying to solve?What factors influence their behavior?

How might we help our customers solve their problems?

Can our customers solve their problems

effectively?

EXPLORING A PROBLEM

VALIDATING SOLUTIONS

USABILITY

Tactics• Hi-fi prototyping• A/B testing

Outcomes● User stories

Ex - Large financial institution - lots of tools - all the feedback was that their sales people hated the tools, it was difficult to use, etc. Their users (Sales) gave them feedback by recommending improvements within the context of existing solutions. Improvements to existing systems still did little to increase adoption. So what to do?

“This is definitely helpful. . . . Succinct and tight.”

“This is cool – I’ve never seen anything like this.”

“You really helped us think outside the box”

“Your team brought a totally unique perspective”

“This is exactly what I need - you guys are way ahead of me”

Opportunities Hypotheses Stories

You can take it from here :)