Why asking your customers what they want doesn't work
https://techbooks.substack.com/p/why-asking-your-customers-what-they
The article discusses how simply asking customers what they want often does not lead to successful innovation. It describes how Intuit struggled by focusing only on building requested features without understanding the "jobs to be done." A story is told of a fast food chain that failed to increase milkshake sales despite adding requested elements, but succeeded by observing what "jobs" customers hired milkshakes for, such as a boring commute. The book Competing Against Luck introduces the concept of "jobs to be done" thinking, which focuses on understanding the problems customers need solved rather than just their stated wants. Identifying negative jobs people work around can also provide opportunities for innovation to solve important problems.
Let’s take a look at a project for a fast-food chain: how to sell more milkshakes.
The chain had spent months studying the problem in incredible detail. It had brought in customers that fit the profile of the ideal milkshake consumer and peppered them with questions: “Can you tell us how we can improve our milkshakes so you’d buy more of them? Do you want it cheaper? Chunkier? Chewier? Chocolatier?”
Even when customers explained what they thought they would like, it was hard to know exactly what to do. The chain tried many things in response to the customer feedback, innovations specifically intended to satisfy the highest number of potential milkshake buyers. Within months, something notable happened: Nothing.
After all the marketers’ efforts, there was no change in sales of the chain’s milkshake category. So we thought of approaching the question in a totally different way: I wonder what job arises in people’s lives that causes them to come to this restaurant to “hire” a milkshake?
Armed with that perspective, the team stood in a restaurant for eighteen hours one day, watching people:
- What time did people buy these milkshakes?
- What were they wearing?
- Were they alone?
- Did they buy other food with it?
- Did they drink it in the restaurant or drive off with it?
It turned out that a surprising number of milkshakes were sold before 9: 00 a.m. to people who came into the fast-food restaurant alone. It was almost always the only thing they bought. They didn’t stop to drink it there; they got into their cars and drove off with it. So we asked them: “Excuse me, please, but I have to sort out this puzzle. What job were you trying to do for yourself that caused you to come here and hire that milkshake?”
It soon became clear that the early-morning customers all had the same job to do: they had a long and boring ride to work. They needed something to keep the commute interesting. They weren’t really hungry yet, but they knew that in a couple of hours, they’d face a midmorning stomach rumbling. It turned out that there were a lot of competitors for this job, but none of them did the job perfectly.
- “I hire bananas sometimes. But take my word for it: don’t do bananas. They are gone too quickly—and you’ll be hungry again by midmorning,” one told us.
- Doughnuts were too crumbly and left the customers’ fingers sticky, making a mess on their clothes and the steering wheel as they tried to eat and drive.
- Bagels were often dry and tasteless—forcing people to drive their cars with their knees while they spread cream cheese and jam on the bagels.
But a milkshake? It was the best of the lot. It took a long time to finish a thick milkshake with that thin straw. And it was substantial enough to ward off the looming midmorning hunger attack.