Introduction
You'll find it all over the internet: "Ask customers what they want"; "find out what problems you can solve for them"; "ask them what they need, that you can provide".
Is this good advice?
A Quiz For You
Before you respond, please answer these three questions.
Q1 What do the motor car, the ball point pen, Super Glue, nylon, air travel, the internet, Facebook and the iPad have in common?
Q2 What market research model does Apple follow to ensure that their new products are a response to specific customer demand?
Q3 Who said, "You can't just ask customers what they want and then try to give it to them"
These are the answers.
A1 None of these inventions were created in response to customer surveys or market research.
A2 None. Apple doesn't undertake customer surveys or research before designing and launching products.
A3. Steve Jobs, Founder Apple Computers.
The Unpalatable Reality
The reality is this. The answer to the question that's the title of this article is "Probably not".
The Reality: Three Examples
You see, being successful in business isn't a question of asking prospects what they need and providing it. To quote Steve Jobs again, "You can't just ask customers what they want and then try to give it to them. By the time you get it built, they'll want something else".
If you still have doubts, ask Australian, Brett McFall, author of "How To Make Money While You Sleep". It's a book about internet marketing. Did he ask aspiring internet marketers whether they wanted yet another "how to" book? Brett saw an opportunity and responded. Then he proceeded to locate his target market and make his book irresistible to them. It's a best seller.
Henry Ford was once asked why he hadn't done market research about public demand for the motor car. "They'd have wanted a faster horse", he replied. Nothing much has changed in 100 years.
Survey Design Problems
There's another problem with customer surveys. Survey design is a very specialist business. It's easy to let your own beliefs affect the design of the survey and therefore the value of the results. It takes great skill in survey design to avoid this.
One study suggests that as much as 70% of all surveys are contaminated in this way. It's called Self Fulfilling Prophecy. And few survey designers realize they're doing it.
Reasons For Response
Then there are the customers whom you're surveying. Let's say that their honesty is beyond reproach. How can you tell whether their response to your survey questions is merely a reaction to a recent problem or even an attempt to provide an answer that they heard from a guru or read in a text book? If you can't tell the difference …..
Perspectives
There's also the issue of comparing like with like. Let's say that the manager of a family business with 13 employees says that her biggest problem is staff communication. And let's say that the same answer is provided by the manager of a company with 2000 employees. These two managers probably define "communications" very differently.
The Internet/Action Issue
A stated interest is also fairly meaningless. It's no indication of future action including purchase action. A statement of interest is nothing more than a statement of possible, not probable intent. Most Australians would show considerable interest in weather patterns due to recent, devastating "droughts and flooding rains." Few would buy a rain gauge or a barometer due to their interest.
The Fallacy Of Perceived Client Need
Consider these questions
- who was clamouring for an inexpensive horseless carriage some 100 years ago?
- what groundswell of popular interest caused the creation of what's become Facebook?
- who asked Steve Jobs to design the machine that ultimately became Apple?
- who insisted that the military and academia share with the general public the computer system we now know as the internet?
- where was the public demand for flight that convinced the Wright brothers to work towards inventing what lead to commercial aircraft?
These questions all have the same answer: There was effectively no client demand.
EzineArticles And Performance Appraisal
Ezine Articles have published 174 of my articles since July 2008. In August 2008. EA published a piece of mine called "Practical Performance Appraisal- Measuring Employee Performance Successfully Without Forms."
This is the most read article of mine published by EA. It's had twice as many views as the next most popular. Although it's almost three years old, it's already had 205 new views in 2011. I've never surveyed clients or prospects about their interest in performance appraisal. But their response to this article tells me that they're very interested. I don't need a survey.
A True Story: "It Writes Under Water"
If you're still dubious, this true story may help. Ballpoint pens were introduced into Australia in the early 1950s. They were called "Biros". They cost about one week's wages. They caused a sensation. They carried the slogan, "It writes underwater". Salespeople demonstrated this quality by placing paper in a bowl of water and writing on it. There were no customer surveys: no focus groups: no market research. And very few people actually needed a pen that "wrote under water". They sold like hotcakes: for about $500 each in today's money.
Surveys Are Valuable
Surveys of clients and customers can be very useful. They can provide excellent customer feedback on various issues, such as customer service and customer staff interaction. They must be carefully and professionally designed.
Conclusion
Surveys of prospects about their problems, aggravations, frustrations and needs are no way to base new products or service development. I accept that they're widely advocated and used by many web marketers. Perhaps it's just another example of those web marketers not knowing what they don't know.
What To Do Now
Firstly, if you've used customer surveys to find out what product or service your customers need, I'd be interested in hearing about it. If you haven't, find another technique to enable you to "serve 'em to death".
