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Innovation. For more info: http://www.innovationnetwork.biz/
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** NEW for the InnovationWizard -- 8 one-hour workshop guides
for self-facilitated groups focused on developing a better
understanding of innovation and learning and using simple,
powerful tools to be more effective and creative thinkers.
For more information about the InnovationWizard,
staff@innovationnetwork.biz.
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Archives and other musings at http://innovationnetwork.biz
Gaining Customer Insights -- the Creative
Way
Finding out what customers want is a fundamental
aspect of innovation. However, it's one of those things that
is easier said than done. Customer surveys and focus groups
have proven ineffective in most cases and bad data can be
worse than no data.
Gerald Zaltman in his book, "How Customers
Think" states, "The correlation between stated intent
and actual behavior is usually low and often negative."
He tells a chilling tale of a household appliance manufacturer
whose market research showed that 60% of customers were likely
to purchase the new appliance. A year later the actual results
were that 12% had actually purchased and the customers were
unable to explain their reasons for not buying. Imagine gearing
up sales, marketing, manufacturing, distribution and service
for a new product and being off by a factor of 5!
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So how do you
gain true customer insights? We thought this would be an interesting
question to explore to see what you've done and seen done.
One example we've seen recently is Staples' InnovationQuest.
The nationwide quest for simple new office products was launched
in 2003 and prospective inventors had until November to submit
their ideas. To enhance participation, Staples offered a $25,000
prize to the top winner and $5,000 for the other eleven finalists.
Additionally, the winner would receive royalties if the product
was produced and sold by Staples.
The very process of launching the InnovationQuest
created positives -- in addition to engaging people (and most
likely, customers) with Staples, the inventions submitted
would highlight perceived problems. This week Staples announced
the twelve finalists out of 8,000 entries and invited the
world to judge them. You too can vote at: http://inventionquest.dja.com/HomePage.html
The voting process invites other customers into the mix and
their votes are another way to get feedback. I'm not sure
that the inventions include any blockbusters such as the Post-It
Note, but the value is in the customer feedback rather than
the actual new products ideas submitted.
So, tell us what creative ways you've seen
to gain customer insights. Send your responses to staff@innovationnetwork.biz
... or better still go to the Heads-Up! Blog where all the
archives are stored and enter your comments directly.
http://thinksmart.typepad.com/
headsup_on_organizational/ |
