Are you meeting all your customers’ needs? According to a Salesforce survey, 66% of consumers expect companies to understand their needs and expectations. But what if you aren’t meeting those needs or don’t know what those needs are? Then your customers will probably spend their money elsewhere. 

In order for your business to succeed, you must be able to continually identify your customer needs. Fortunately, there’s a strategy you can use. In the Harvard Business Review Magazine July-August 2022 article “Identifying Unmet Needs in a Digital Age” Jean-Louis Barsoux, Michael Wade, and Cyril Bouquet propose a four-part framework to help identify your customer’s unmet needs. 

The authors state the approach rests on two main approaches: better understanding your main users and looking closely at unconventional users. 

Understanding Your Main Users

You probably already gather data on your mainstream users with surveys and interviews. However, If you want to better understand unmet needs, the authors suggest using a microscope or panorama strategy. 

The Microscope Strategy is all about focusing on the lived experiences of your users. This strategy goes beyond your usual focus groups and interviews. You need to use direct observation. Believe it or not, Lego was once losing business. To better understand the unmet needs of its users, the Lego Group observed children at play. They found something that reignited their business. Kids were less interested in easy-to-assemble Lego kits and more interested in spending time being creative with Legos. 

If you want to observe your own customers, the authors suggest you don’t have to go to their homes as Lego Group did. Many companies can take advantage of data collection through user devices such as smartphones and wearables to gather data.

The next strategy for studying main users is the Panorama Strategy, which looks at data from errors, complaints, and accidents. For example, Netflix uses data from customer complaints in their Net Promoter Score (NPS) surveys to improve the Netflix experience. 

Customer experience expert and founding Netflix executive Mitch Lowe said the company concentrated on the somewhat-satisfied customers to improve the overall customer experience. These somewhat-satisfied people liked Netflix but didn’t think the service was great. One of the things Netflix found was customers hated having to go back to the menu to start the next episode, so Netflix changed the system to allow the next episode to begin right away. 

Likewise, customer experience speaker and former Vice President of Innovation & Creativity at Disney Duncan Wardle looked at the experience of people waiting in lines at Disney parks. Understandably, people didn’t like to wait. Disney used the feedback to allow people to book park rides in advance. This change improved the customer experience by allowing them to spend more time shopping or eating, boosting the revenue of the parks.

Understanding Your Unconventional Users

You can also find unmet customer needs by looking at unconventional users. If you only study your main users, you could risk missing new markets. For unconventional users, the authors suggest trying a telescope or kaleidoscope strategy.

The Telescope Strategy is about focusing on your periphery users, extreme users, or nonusers. Your product or service might seem like it’s for a certain audience but could have a broader reach. For example, audiobooks were initially created for people with visual impairment. Then audiobook creators noticed some customers were using audiobooks for commuting and were able to expand beyond their base. Likewise, Legos were initially seen as a child’s toy only but it turned out adults loved building with them as well. 

Customer experience keynote speaker Jackie Huba suggests focusing on extreme users or one-percenters to find unmet needs. Huba studied the top fans of Lady Gaga to show how the singer was able to grow her audience by focusing on top fans. If you want to find unconventional user data, the article authors suggest studying extreme or peripheral users through community groups on Reddit and Facebook.

Finally, with the Kaleidoscope Strategy, you could look beyond your users, suppliers, distributors, and competitors to find unmet needs. For example, Volvo had always been known as a safe car—for the driver. But there were people not using the car who could also benefit. Volvo noticed bicyclists tend to get hit by cars. So the company developed a car with bike-detention sensors, servicing the unmet needs of a group outside its normal users. The authors suggest you can find these unmet needs through social-listening tools and unstructured data-scraping algorithms.

To be successful in finding new users or new uses for your products or services, you don’t have to use these four strategies in a certain order. If you’re looking for new uses for your product, focus on your main users. However, if you’re looking for new markets, look for unconventional users.

For more on improving your customer experience, contact BigSpeak Speakers Bureau to book a top customer experience keynote speaker.

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