Are you really being customer-centric?
Yesterday I had to accompany my mother
to the doctor. The roles reverse, as she did go with me while I was
young and now it is the other way around. She had to perform a lung
test. The outcome was that she has to use a certain medicine for six
weeks.
Why is this relevant in the context of
innovation? Well, the medicine has to be inhaled via a complicated
tool. So, we went to the pharmacist and ordered the product. Then he
set up a meeting in a separate room with us to 'demonstrate' the
product. In other words, how to use it. This is all very good,
but........ he had problems showing it correctly. As a matter of fact
he made some mistakes, as I did find out reading the manual. The
product is not easy to use and because of that it will not be used
properly.
While the medicine and the tool might
be very advanced, the results still depends on whether your customer
CAN use it. The product was clearly not designed in a user-centric
way. It still was designed form a product-centric point of view. Many
companies say that their main strategy is to move from being
product-centric to being customer-centric. It is evident that they
still have to learn quite a lot to putting the user first in all
their work.
How are you being customer-centric in
all your activities?
GROW
YOUR PEOPLE, GROW YOUR BUSINESS!