Customer Development when barred from speaking to customers?
I have an interesting quandary, that I wondered if anyone had any thoughts on. I can't go in to huge detail, as I'm on an NDA, but I'm doing a small piece of work for a client who wants to improve an existing, low-performing, product.
In short, I'm not allowed to speak directly to my client's customers - only the client relationship managers. In other words, the only people I can get data from are people who work for the client, and deal directly with the customers.
I'm concerned that I'm going to get filtered information, and skewed data, by speaking to people who have their own biases and agendas about the customers.
Has anyone else ever dealt with this? Any good questions to ask?
Can you ask to review all bug reports and other customer contact records?
I would ask to see minutes and action item lists from meetings, project plans, and other documents related to how your client has interacted with customers.
I would also offer to do a "lost business" report where you talk to ex-customers about why they left and to prospects who received proposals / quotes and did not move forward.
I think the risk of bias is a real one but you may be able to get a more holistic view of interactions if you can gather the perceptions and documented interactions from a number of people in contact with the same customer.
All of these steps are useful preparation even when you have permission to talk to the customer.