Make your customer wish come true ??

Cinderella was trying to get a job done on the night of the ball. She did not just want to play dress up and go attend the ball — rather she was fighting for her right to attend the ball. The invite from the palace clearly said every maiden in the kingdom is eligible to attend the ball, and if that is the decree from the king (and the queen — but they don’t have a queen in the story, and that may be because Disney was too early to spot a trend of single parents) then even her own stepmother cannot take it away from her. She was very sad about being denied the right to go attend by her own stepsisters. Her clothes were torn, her beads were shattered, and her hair pulled loose. Of course, this story does take a better turn, the fairy godmother (FGM in short — I know I am lazy like that and come one we guys are people who laugh using LOLs) appears, swishes her wand and Cinderella is transformed. To fulfill Cinderella’s needs the FGM summoned a carriage of pumpkins, transformed rats into royal horses — all with a bibbidi bobbidi boo. But by midnight the magic goes away — poof — and Cinderella is left with two glass slippers as a reminder of the memorable night. There is a happy ending of course after several twists and turns.

That I how usually imagine any customer service complains and calls to be. The customer is in massive — according to them — trouble. At that moment they all are basically summoning an FGM and hope things work out smoothly as it did for Cinderella. In this story, there is one Cinderella with just one wish so the FGM could make the magic happen. Modern day businesses though, bear witness to hundreds of Cinderella’s with hundreds of wishes, and this isn’t a one-off thing either.

Now imagine you are the business owner, so you are going to be the FGM who appears every time a customer is facing some trouble. Usually, this conjecture is a great customer touch point, but mostly prescriptive and postmortem — we come after a problem has occurred or and ask is formed in the minds of the customer. You see even the FGM made the magic last for only an evening. When it comes to businesses we have to replicate this magic time and again, not just that, we got to make the effects last longer too — if possible forever. So, why can’t the FGM appear way before all that emotional drama, or intuitively know these are the needs, wants and expectations of the Cinderella in the discussion.

Now how do you unearth customer expectations, and solve problems they didn’t even know existed?

This is where I like to utilize some principles of customer co-creation.

Using I like, I wish, What if

Introduced by originally by d.school this tool is really effective in getting open feedback or we can even say pre-emptive feedback. So how does this work?

(+) I like is used to express what they like in what is there today — be it regarding your products or services. This shows what is really important to the customer. There might be a hundred things your company does, but there are some really unique things about your business that is not replicable by others, and this would carve your Unique Value Proposition (a.k.a USP). e.g. I like that you guys have a very beautiful office. I like that your people are very approachable. I like that you guys have great work ethics and culture. I like that your delivery is super-fast.

(-) I wish is used to express what can be done better. There is either an inferior version of what is expected in existence or non-existence of what your customers are expecting. It is a rather polite way of saying you guys should be doing something. You can, of course, ask why to understand what job they are trying to get done by asking for a particular feature, process, product or service. To be more specific customers are trying to point out negatives and also giving you an alternative of how things can be done differently. They are helping you improve. e.g. I wish this place has better ventilation. I wish you guys used biodegradable packaging. I wish your security system was more robust. I wish your apps send lesser notifications.

(?) What if (also takes the avatar of I wonder…) is used to express a question or unsolvable puzzle they have regarding your product. Mostly they are expressing how unsure they are about something happening or something that should not be happening or something that should be happening but is not. What-if an amazingly powerful tool to think about future state or challenge the current state. It also opens up to possibilities for ideation and exploration. e.g. I wonder if my grandmother will appreciate this touchscreen phone. I wonder how this place will function during winters. I wonder how we are going to transport this thing. What if my pets hate this new monitoring device? What if we had no work timings?

Metrics that matter

Customers are notoriously different from us when measuring success. Their success criterion varies vastly from our success criteria. Their outcomes are different from our outcomes. So how do they measure the success of a job well done? The answer to that question is — it depends. It totally depends on the jobs they are trying to get done and highly on the context in which they are trying to get it done.

Contexts can bring about different success criteria and metrics for measuring a job well done.

• When the criteria of measurement changes based on physical context e.g. getting my engine started on any morning — not such a big deal — vs getting my engine started after heavy rains — yes a bit of a big deal.
• When the criteria of measurement changes based on social context e.g. dressing up in formals to the office every day — quite used to it — vs dressing up for a presentation to key clients — different expectations.

It is really important to understand how your customer is accessing a job well done, and in that regard how your product or service is fairing. So the most basic of ways you can think about measurements is,

Less strategy: You are able to reduce effort, time and resources of a customer towards getting something done. That is all about their physical, financial and intellectual investment into something. You can achieve this by simplifying the product or number of steps in availing a service or a process. e.g. Before I had to wait ten days to get a delivery, now I can get a two day delivery for a small premium.

More strategy: You are able to do more for your customer. You are fulfilling adjacent jobs or complementary jobs. This is a fine balance as to not become everything for everyone. The alternative to not fall in the feature creep trap or building too many product complexities is to keep improving job performances. Increase the quality of the product, and speed up the time taken to accomplish the task. Improve the user experience of your product by introducing comfort, luxury while maintaining the ease of use. e.g. Before I used to be able to edit my videos online, now I can even make them, and add animation features.

Try it yourself:

How do you measure success? Or how do you measure a job well done?

How do your customers measure success? Or how do they measure a job well done?

Now check if the two match…

Key Takeaways…

Balance the jobs: The key is to not forget that is customer always needs a fine balance on functional and emotional jobs — based on the product the meter tends to sway one way or another. e.g. for a drilling machine, I might want more functional jobs done than emotional jobs whereas for a child safety monitoring tool I would having a sway towards emotional jobs than just the functional jobs. You will have to see what your customers are willing to trade off.

Put to more / another use: The other way is to see if your products can become more inclusive toward a broad spectrum of stakeholders or users. Say a drilling machine was originally built for professional carpenters and builders, but slowly they have added lines for home use, for hobby builders, and smaller and more lightweight options for arts and craft purposes. Suddenly it is the same tool, with slight modifications becomes applicable to a wide range of users. They key is to ask, who else will be interested in our product?

Hope this helps you understand how to measure success from the point of view of the customer. They are not unreasonable as far as there are fair trade-offs to the value.

References:

#1 Method cards by d.school

#2 Jobs to be done — A roadmap for customer-centred innovation by Stephen Wunker, Jessica Wattman and David Farber