Voice-Of-The-Customer – Lecture 2 How to Interview a Customer

An Integrated Strategic Technology Planningand Development Environment NewConceptIdeation TechnologyRoadmapping Voiceof theCustomer IntellectualPropertyGeneration Scenario Planning Voice of the Customer - Lecture 2

We just completedQFD Phase 1 Phase 1 Voice of the Customer - Lecture 2

Psychological impact Psychological impact • The Customer Interview Process • The 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”). Voice of the Customer - Lecture 2

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! Voice of the Customer - Lecture 2

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! Voice of the Customer - Lecture 2

Based on the customer interviews, your job is to fill in these boxes: Voice of the Customer - Lecture 2

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... Grain warehouses Voice of the Customer - Lecture 2

Our focus area: Small animal kill traps for grain warehouses So now we’re ready to do the customer interview… Voice of the Customer - Lecture 2

Customer interviews can be done in four steps: 4 3 1 2 Voice of the Customer - Lecture 2

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! Voice of the Customer - Lecture 2

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. Voice of the Customer - Lecture 2

The 5 Whys Approach • You ask a customer a question. • They give you an answer. • You ask: “Why do you need that?” • They give you an answer. • You ask: “Why do you need that?” • They give you an answer. • You ask “Why do you need that” five times. • This gets you to the root cause. Voice of the Customer - Lecture 2

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! Voice of the Customer - Lecture 2

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? Voice of the Customer - Lecture 2

You now have enough information to complete the Step 1 box: 1 • Now we can change these to: • Self-baiting • Self-setting • Self-cleaning Voice of the Customer - Lecture 2

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. Voice of the Customer - Lecture 2

Step 2 is to determine customer importanceof each of the needs… 2 Voice of the Customer - Lecture 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… Voice of the Customer - Lecture 2

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! Voice of the Customer - Lecture 2

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. Voice of the Customer - Lecture 2

Bubble Sort: Swap? Swap? Repeat until nothing changes Swap? Voice of the Customer - Lecture 2

Now Step 3… 3 Voice of the Customer - Lecture 2

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. Voice of the Customer - Lecture 2

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. Voice of the Customer - Lecture 2

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). Voice of the Customer - Lecture 2

Finally, Step 4: 4 Voice of the Customer - Lecture 2

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 better 4 = Better 3 = Similar 2 = Worse 1 = 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’sideal performance. Voice of the Customer - Lecture 2

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 Voice of the Customer - Lecture 2

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. Voice of the Customer - Lecture 2

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. Voice of the Customer - Lecture 2

You have completed the customer interview! 4 3 1 2 Voice of the Customer - Lecture 2

Voice-Of-The-Customer – Lecture 2 How to Interview a Customer