Tell me why the customer cares about that

When I’m working as a Customer Experience Designer / Human-Centred Designer, this is one of my favourite conversation prompts.

As part of my approach to teaching people about Human-Centred Design and Design Thinking, I ask them to bring along a problem they are trying to solve or an idea they have. Often, especially in the corporate world, the problem turns out to be a business problem rather than a customer problem – let me explain:

“We need more people to buy or use our product / service”

 “People aren’t using our product / service the way we want them too” 

“People are leaving because they aren’t happy with our product / service”

While these might all be real problems they aren’t actually customer problems.

Let’s take, for example, “People aren’t using our product / service the way we want them to.” Maybe people aren’t using your product / service in the way you want them to because they have found a different way, a new way that suits them more.

Posing the question “Why does the customer care about that?” helps refocus on the person who is using or purchasing the product or service. The question invites you to step into the customers’ shoes and see the world through their eyes for a moment, to consider things from their point of view, to think about their experiences and pain points.

If we look at tetra packs, they are (so I’m told) designed to be poured with the spout at the top rather than the bottom. Pouring with the spout at the top helps to balance the amount of air coming out of the container and reduces the splashing yet most people (including me) pour with the spout at the bottom. I tired pouring from the top… it felt weird and I did not like it.

Many of us are, apparently, using this product feature “wrong” but do any of us care?
Probably not.

How do you pour yours?

Ok, but how about the problem “People aren’t using it properly, they’re getting annoyed with it and leaving.”  Well, tell me why the customer cares about that – let’s see if we can get a deeper understanding, and see things from their perspective. Let’s use a gym membership or a health insurance product as an example. How might this be a problem from the customers’ perspective?

They don’t use it properly so they can’t get any benefit from it – they can’t use the gym or make any claims
They don’t use it at all so they don’t get any value – why do I have this gym membership when I never use it?
When they try to use it they can’t and it’s frustrating / annoying when they find out they can’t – I went to the dentist & I thought my insurance would cover it but it didn’t
They went all the way there and had a wasted trip – I went all the way to the gym but I couldn’t get in because my membership is only for off-peak classes
They didn’t realise they couldn’t use it until after the work / service had been provided – I went to the dentist and it was only after all the work had been done and I went to pay at reception that I realised I wasn’t covered, what do I do now?

Now we start to get a fuller picture. We start to get down to peoples’ needs.

Instead of looking at how to get someone to use something differently we start to focus on the problem of people not understanding how to use their gym membership / insurance product; we start to look at how might we make it easier for people to use their gym membership / insurance product, how might we provide a safety net so that if people do get caught with an unexpected expense they aren’t left red faced and unable to pay; How might we help members who come to workout but have come at the wrong time?

All of these will have very different solutions to “How do we stop people leaving because they can’t use their membership / insurance?” because these solutions focus more on the source. They focus on the actual need of the customer.

Give it a try, the next time you are thinking about a problem that you want to solve, ask yourself or a colleague “Why does the customer care about that?” you might be surprised what you come up with.

If you found this helpful and want to tell me about it, feel free to email me (hello@lizmoffatt.com) and we can high-five to your success over email.

May The Fore be with you.

I acknowledge the traditional custodians of the lands and waterways in which I work.
I pay my respects to elders past, present and emerging.