A fresh approach to VOC methods allows you to completely understand B2B customer needs.
Cuyahoga Falls, OH (February 2016)—How does your company compare to other companies in new product success rates? If you are “average,” only one out of four products will succeed once your team begins its development work. Can you think of any other part of your company that tolerates a 75% scrap rate?
What’s the cause? It’s actually not a big mystery. Ever since the early 1970’s, research has shown the #1 problem isn’t with scientists and engineers failing to come up with the right answers. It’s that they were working on the wrong questions. Companies have struggled for more than four decades with this simple truth: They lack good insight into customers’ needs.
According to Dan Adams (www.danadams-aim.com), founder of The AIM Institute, this need not be the case: “Innovators have overlooked a powerful reality for too long: B2B customers tend to have much more knowledge, interest, objectivity, and foresight than end-consumers. Compare an engineer buying a hydraulics hose to a homeowner buying a garden hose and the difference becomes obvious.” According to Adams, this leads to an important truth: B2B customers can tell you exactly what they need… if you only know how to ask them.
Adams has written a short e-book, Reinventing VOC for B2B, that covers 12 new rules for transforming voice-of-customer… designed specifically for B2B suppliers. To set the stage, he explores four “awkward realities.” First, your customers are smarter than you. Sure, Steve Jobs never asked customers what they wanted. But an iPod is a consumer product—not B2B: Apple engineers designed a product they could easily see themselves using. Imagine you’re developing a pigment for paper—a B2B product. Certainly your B2B customer—the paper producer—knows much more about how your product is used than you.
Second, your VOC is probably boring customers. Do you like to answer surveys at home? How about at work? Lots of free time there? Neither do customers want to see you coming with a questionnaire or interview guide. But your B2B customers do want to help you innovate: They’ll be a hero if your new product or service helps their company make or save money. If you only knew how to engage them, exciting things would happen.
Adams’s third “awkward reality” is that you don’t know what you don’t know. Some suppliers just can’t wait to go through their list of questions with customers. It’s fine if they want to confirm facts, validate hypotheses, and fill in gaps. But here’s the thing: The typical supplier knows what they know (facts). They know what they think (hypotheses). And they know what they don’t know (gaps). But they don’t know what they don’t know. In the best B2B interviews and tours, the customer leads… taking the supplier to “the good stuff.”
A fourth and critical awkward reality is that most companies’ new product development processes are backwards. Does your process begin with “idea generation”? So whose idea is it: Yours… or your customers’? Most suppliers start with their own solutions to assumed customer needs. When do they test real customer needs? At the end… by seeing if customers buy their new product. Here’s a thought: What if we flipped that, starting with customer needs and ending with supplier solutions?
Adams says you can replace these awkward realities with new realities… all based on the notion that your B2B customers are really smart… and would like to make you much smarter. His e-book, Reinventing VOC for B2B, covers these twelve rules for conducting B2B-optimized, customer-engaging voice-of-customer interviews and tours:
Rule 1: Be a pro when you request the interview. A world-class interview team won’t succeed if the customer doesn’t agree to an interview… or if only the customer’s summer intern shows up. (A video embedded in Adams’s free e-book demonstrates how a pro sets up her interviews.)
Rule 2: Digitally project your notes for all to see. When you ask customers your questions… they’re doing you a favor. But it’s different when customers see their thoughts recorded for them to see. Now they own the process: You’re just a helpful facilitator.
Rule 3: Let the customer guide the interview. First you ask for any problems (or desires), and probe for understanding. Then you ask, “What else?” After probing this outcome, you ask for another problem. And so on.
Rule 4: Impress them with your listening skills. There are two parts to listening: 1) Are you listening? 2) Do you demonstrate you are listening? The PEAR method (Posture-Expression-Activity-Response) helps interviewers signal their interest in the customer.
Rule 5: Probe for the unspoken & unimagined. Outcome Statements (pioneered by Anthony Ulwick of Strategyn) are a great way to help customers precisely articulate their needs. Another method—Trigger Maps—helps them expand their thinking more broadly.
Rule 6: Use AMUSE for customer tours. The AIM Institute developed the AMUSE methodology for B2B customer tours. For each discrete activity, look for ways to Accelerate Activity, Minimize Input, Upgrade Output, Simplify Transition, or Eliminate Activity.
Rule 7: Create Market Satisfaction Gap profiles. The problem with qualitative VOC is that you tend to hear what you want to hear. You should also conduct quantitative, convergent VOC. The easily-calculated Market Satisfaction Gap measures customers’ eagerness for improvement.
Rule 8: Build—and share—a value calculator. Value calculators help you predict, document and communicate the value of your new product. This is important because a customer’s price ceiling isn’t set by the value you deliver. It’s set by their perception of the value you deliver.
Rule 9: Engage many in VOC… but never sell or solve. Employ “VOC for the masses.” Don’t rely on a small staff of internal VOC experts or hired guns. Take advantage of your company’s thousands of annual customer meetings by boosting the VOC skills of many.
Rule 10: Interview down your value chain. Components & materials often become part of customers’ products, so these suppliers can have a large impact on customer products. Suppliers of equipment or services often have their greatest impact on customer processes.
Rule 11: Adapt for different global cultures. In many Asian and Latin American countries, customers are especially mindful of the feelings of peers and bosses. So adjustments may be needed, e.g. interviewing a smaller group, or requesting the interview in person vs. by phone.
Rule 12: Give your team “front-end freedom.” Some companies use the front end to “validate” pre-conceived solutions. In most areas of business, we avoid surprises. But innovation is built on surprises… so keep your mind open, be comfortable with ambiguity, and seek surprises in your VOC.
Creating new products that your customers want is the very lifeblood of your company. But there’s a problem: If your competitors have smart R&D departments trying to innovate, where is your advantage? Adams suggests the key is ensuring your engineers and scientists are working on exactly what customers want… while competitors’ R&D personnel keep guessing. He concludes, “In 20 or 30 years, nearly all B2B suppliers will be fully tapping the incredible knowledge of their customers. But I can assure you this is a rare occurrence today. B2B-optimized VOC is an enormous source of competitive advantage for those pursuing it now.”
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About the Author: Dan Adams is the founder and President of The AIM Institute, and author of New Product Blueprinting: The Handbook for B2B Organic Growth. In over 35 years working within and with Fortune 500 corporations, he has explored all aspects of B2B innovation, building New Product Blueprinting from the ground up. He is a chemical engineer and holder of many patents and innovation awards, including a listing in the National Inventors Hall of Fame. Dan’s front-end-of-innovation work with DuPont (as a lead client) led to a novel online training model, that received the “best article of the year” award from the Product Development and Management Association. One of the foremost experts in B2B innovation, he has taught thousands of B2B professionals in every region of the world in hundreds of workshops—logging up to a quarter-million miles annually. Over 70% of his work is with Fortune 500 level B2B companies. An award-winning speaker, he has lectured at Wharton’s Executive MBA program, other American and European universities, and is a popular industry keynote speaker. For more information, visit www.danadams-aim.com or download Dan Adams Speakers Kit.
About his publications: New Product Blueprinting: The Handbook for B2B Organic Growth (AIM Press, 2008, ISBN: 978-0-9801123-4-4, $35.00) is available at bookstores nationwide and from major online booksellers. Dan has also authored two popular e-books, Reinventing VOC for B2B, and 12 New Rules of B2B Product Launch and several thought-leading white papers on B2B innovation. His blog, Awkward Realities, explores today’s innovation malpractices that are destined to change.
For more information: Visit www.newproductblueprinting.com or email info@theaiminstitute.com. For public relations matters, please contact Lisa Avedon at lisa@ideaworksbmc.com.