The Power of Curiosity and Knowing Your Customer

 

One of the most important lessons I ever learned was when I was working as an assistant brand manager for a consumer products company.  As part of our training we had to conduct in-home research with potential customers.  My first research topic was cleaning.  Being somewhat young and arrogant, I initially approached the assignment with the mindset that it was a complete waste of time.  I remember telling myself, “I’ve been cleaning things around the house for years so I already have a pretty good idea of what’s involved.”  I had never been more wrong.

Our research participant lived in a small two-bedroom apartment with her husband and a toddler.  After knocking on the door she invited me in.  We exchanged some pleasantries to get past some of the awkwardness.  I began with a simple question, which was “can you show me where you keep your cleaning supplies?”  After that we started to have a conversation about each product.  We would explore why she had it, where she used it, where she bought it, and how often it was used.  No radical insights.  I impatiently heard myself affirming in my head, “Yes, I know, Windex is really good at cleaning windows.“

Then a funny thing happened.  We walked over to the only bathroom in the house.  It was small, completely tiled, and absolutely immaculate from ceiling to floor.  I instinctively asked how she kept it so clean.  It was at this point that the woman started to break down -- almost to the point of tears.  She confessed that she spent one hour cleaning this bathroom every single day.  I was stunned.  She went on to explain that she smoked cigarettes but couldn’t leave her child unattended.  She refused to smoke in front of her child because it would set a bad example, so she would run to the bathroom several times a day to smoke a cigarette with the fan on.  At night, she would clean the bathroom to eliminate any traces of smoking.

Cleaning wasn’t simply a functional process like I assumed.  For her, it was a complex mixture of emotions wrapped up with feelings of love, guilt, moral obligation, and a genuine desire to be a good mom in spite of all the flaws that come from simply being human.  In short, I was overwhelmed at how little I actually understood.  From this realization sprang a genuine curiosity that has continued to serve me well.  And whenever I hear that foolish little voice in my head that says "You already know this", I immediately shut it down.        

The other thing I learned is that having conversations about your products and services doesn’t have to be awkward.  For some people it comes naturally, but for others it requires a little more structure.  One of the tools that I recommend is a “discussion guide.”  Just like it sounds, it’s an outline to help you facilitate a conversation to learn about something.  A general approach that I like to use is as follows:

1. Set a Learning Objective:  Define what you're trying to learn.  Are you generally seeking information and/or if there is something specific about a product, service, or technology that you need more information about. 
2. Identify your audience.  Determine who you want to speak with and why.  The specificity of the audience will be based on your objective.  Remember, sometimes you might get better insights from people who don’t use your product or service, or who don’t even like your product or service.  Competitive insights can be very powerful.
3. Provide a short introduction.  When you meet with someone, explain who you are, what you’re wanting to learn about, and also how you might be empowered to take action based on what they tell you.  People are generally much more interested in providing helpful feedback if they know you’re empowered to make changes.
4. Start by letting them be the expert.  When you’re speaking with someone, start with open-ended questions that allow them to explain their relationship to a product, service, technology, or situation.  This helps them to provide context, get a little more comfortable, and demonstrate their knowledge.  For example, if you were trying to learn more about how people use their phone, you might ask “Tell me about when and where you use your phone?”  During the conversation you might follow up with “Why do you?” questions, which often make good transitions to other related topics you want to learn about.  Notice, the questions are not intended to place judgement, but simply to understand and let them share their experience.
5. Consider likes / dislikes.  I often like to try to explore extremes.  Another good general question is to ask what they like most and least about something.  And, if appropriate, followed by “Why?”.  I think of this as setting the upper and lower control limits for the topic.
6. Get more specific.  Once you’ve developed some rapport and context with the person, you can follow-up on more specific topics.  This might tie to a specific learning objective related to a feature, function, process, concept, idea, etc…  For example, if you were developing an app for a mobile phone, you could present them with actual mock-ups of the app to get their feedback. 
7. Give them the final word.  Sometimes people have something important to share that they may hold back because they weren't asked specifically about it.  At the end of a conversation, I like to ask, “Is there anything else you would like me to know?”  This gives them the opportunity to close the conversation on their terms.  Sometimes the best insights come at the end.
8. Thank them.  Regardless of how the conversation goes, keep in mind that everyone’s time is valuable.  They’ve given you the gift of their perspectives so be sure to give them the respect they deserve.
9. Capture your insights.  Don’t forget to capture your insights or possible actions from the conversation.  If you didn’t take notes when you were talking, ensure you quickly write them down afterwards while the conversation is still fresh in your mind.

** This article was originally published by Jon Hanley on practically project management