“The customer doesn’t know what they want.”
Although people repeat this a lot, especially in the IT world, this is one of the most nonsensical clichés used by those who don’t know how to work with customers. Instead, they try to cover every possibility with a nasty and overcomplicated contract full of difficult legal terms. If you need a lawyer to interpret a contract, you’re probably better off finding a different service provider.
During my MBA classes, one of my professors emphasized that the core purpose of companies is to provide solutions to customer needs—needs that originate with the customers themselves. This raises an important question: if customers have specific needs, how can they not know what they want?
– I don’t know. I’m the customer.
Many justify this claim by quoting the very famous line attributed to Ford (which, by the way, has no verified source): “If we had asked people what they wanted, they would have said faster horses.” While this idea sounds profound, it doesn’t mean that customers don’t know what they want. Rather, customers have needs but are not experts in your field. If they were, they’d just do the work themselves instead of paying you to do it.
Whether or not Ford actually said it, the sentiment has some truth. But not in the sense that customers don’t know what they want. The reality is, they know exactly what they want; they just don’t always know how to express it. And that’s where your expertise comes in. If you can’t build a bridge between what the customer needs and what they’re trying to say, the problem isn’t with the customer. It’s with you.
When a customer says they need faster horses, what they’re really saying is that they want to spend less time traveling. Sure, faster horses might achieve that, but this is where innovation happens. While others might focus on breeding turbocharged stallions, Ford (or whoever) likely reframed the problem to something like, “How can we reduce travel time?” And just like that, horses became one possibility—though not necessarily the best solution.
Business transformation is all about the customer. How can you adapt yourself and your business to better serve customer needs? How can you create more robust and agile processes that lead to customer success? You might not have all the answers yet. Neither do I. But I do know how to help you get there.
Want to learn more? Stay tuned. Or write to me at luisborin@luisborin.com.