What conversations led to changes in your company?
Tell me about a time when a conversation with a customer led to a big change for your company.
I'm actually in the middle of this process right now — thank goodness I'm reading The Mom Test by @robfitz! We're in the beginning stages of this specific initiative so it (deliberately) has a LOT of flexibility - we can change just about any part of it, so long as it (and we) stays within its integrity. I'm really excited to see how these conversations impact the product.
At my old brick and mortar, customer conversations helped me understand that they didn't actually want what I was packaging so nicely, so I started selling in bulk. That was a huge and unexpected shift.
What about you?
Customer conversations are always changing my offerings, especially in the service companies I've had. Also, in the workshops/seminars that I've done, the feedback from the participants has always been huge — honestly, the only things that really remained the same from the beginning til now are the guts of it and the intention.
I've also received customer feedback that didn't have any impact at all, especially if it went against whatever my mission was with creating the thing in the first place. I wonder if this will be covered in The Mom Test, I still have a ways to go. Overall, though, the feedback that I've received has been really really valuable.
Ya, it's perfectly normal to ignore customer feedback, especially after you've already launched and it's fairly product-centric. What usually happens it 1) they request or suggest a feature, 2) you dig in a little bit to understand why they want that feature, 3) you come up with your own solution to deal with that goal/problem (which might look very different from their original suggestion).
Typically, customers know what they want they're trying to achieve, but they'll rarely speak in those terms. Instead, they'll take the mental leap to a proposed solution, which they're not so well-equipped to come up with. But fortunately you are, so long as you take a step back and figure out their original motivations.
In the earlier stages, pre-product, when you're doing "classic" mom test for customer understanding, you'll also sometimes realize that you're simply talking to the "wrong" person. I.E. someone who isn't in your customer segment or who doesn't really have the problem or who is fairly conservative and isn't likely to be an early adopter. In those cases, you can largely just ignore everything they're saying. It's like... if you're opening a vegetarian restaurant, then the feedback from someone who wants a steak isn't particularly relevant.