Taking key concepts from qualitative market research we can quickly prepare a set of questions for when these opportunities arise. Here are a few things to consider:

1. Know what information you want to obtain from the customer

Are you looking to understand your customer better?
Do you want to check whether certain features of your product meet specific needs?
To see how your product is positioned against competitors in your customers mind?

You might want to ask your customer a series of questions on a variety of topics but it’s important to prioritize what data is the most important to gather and then focus your questions on that one topic. The goal isn’t to find out as much information as possible but to obtain quality, actionable feedback from your customers.

2. Ease your customers into providing answers

Start with simple questions to help build their confidence in providing you feedback. For example, “Have you used Product X recently?” The next few questions should increasingly become more specific to the topic you’ve chosen to explore.

It’s also important to reaffirm or encourage your customers to provide open and honest feedback by saying things like, “there are no wrong answers”, or “please continue your feedback is invaluable”. Invite them to provide more feedback at the end of your conversation.

Be sure to listen intently and to not react to their positive or negative comments. Your reaction may cause the customer to respond differently to adjust feeling awkward or they may start over-emphasizing positive feedback to please you.

3. What kind of questions and comments to avoid?

It’s always best to avoid using complex or technical language:

“Did you like the virtually indestructible LED emitter and precision micro-textured reflector that produce 70 lumens of smooth tactical-level light?” Re: a flashlight.

Don’t make assumptions about the customer:

“Did the flashlight increase your enjoyment of outdoor camping?”

Try not to ask burdensome questions that cause your customers to spend a lot of time thinking for an answer:

“When was the very first time you saw an advertisement with the micro-textured reflector feature?”

Avoid loaded and double-barreled questions:

Since you bought our flashlight, you must feel it’s a better value than our competitors? (loaded)

Do you think there is a good market for the flashlight and that it will sell in the UK? (double-barreled)

And, save ranking and scaled questions for more in-depth market research surveys.

4. Think through different scenarios of answers that your customers may provide and prepare extra questions to accommodate them.

If you have time you may want to think through how an actual conversation might change its course when different answers are provided. It may be that the customer you have talked to did not buy the product but actually just uses it so questions related to price and value against competitors may not be relevant.

Asking your customers the right questions becomes easier the more you practice. The answers you receive from your five personal minutes with your customer could be just as valuable, if not more, as paid market research.

When it comes to product management, the status quo may be great for a time with a very successful product. How much longer is “status quo” acceptable for, before our competitors replicate our winning formula?  That’s not to say that constant flux and change in priorities in an organisation is an ideal way to work either.

Seth Godin’s “Tribes” is a thought-provoking book that that begs the reader to be a new type of leader.  With the barriers of geography, cost and time eliminated through the Internet, it is now possible for anyone who is passionate about anything to be a leader of their own tribe.

Being a design aficionado, particularly when it comes to objects, furniture & interiors, as well as being a Product Manager, the book has inspired me to marry two very separate parts of who I am and lead my own tribe of people in the design field who are keen to explore ways to apply Product Management methodology to their design process.  I have often thought that there must be many others out there who think about how more talented designers and design companies could benefit from applying PManagement that is typically used in much larger organisations.  The first way for me to reach my tribe will be to start a dialogue through brainrants.

I found this book to be a light and enjoyable read that is motivational and thought-provoking at the same time.  It intentionally doesn’t give any concrete steps or guides to the reader on how to be a leader, so it may frustrate some readers.  It gives the reader a sense of empowerment knonwing that you can find your own tribe, no matter how obscure your job or interests may be.

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The Customer Service Gap Model

Today’s consumer has become increasingly demanding. They not only want high quality products but they also expect high quality customer service. Even manufactured products such as cars, mobile phones and computers cannot gain a strategic competitive advantage through the physical products alone.  From a consumer’s point of view, customer service is considered very much part of the product.

Delivering superior value to the customer is an ongoing concern of Product Managers. This not only includes the actual physical product but customer service as well. Products that do not offer good quality customer service that meets the expectations of consumers are difficult to sustain in a competitive market.

SERVQUAL (service quality gap model) is a gap method in service quality measurement, a tool that can be used by Product Manager across all industries. The aim of this model is to:

• Identify the gaps between customer expectation and the actual services provided at different stages of service delivery
• Close the gap and  improve the customer service

This model developed by Parasuraman, Zeithalm and Berry in 1985 identifies five different gaps:

The Customer Gap: The Gap between Customer Expectations and Customer Perceptions

The customer gap is the difference between customer expectations and customer perceptions. Customer expectation is what the customer expects according to available resources and is influenced by cultural background, family lifestyle, personality, demographics, advertising, experience with similar products and information available online. Customer perception is totally subjective and is based on the customer’s interaction with the product or service. Perception is derived from the customer’s satisfaction of the specific product or service and the quality of service delivery. The customer gap is the most important gap and in an ideal world the customer’s expectation would be almost identical to the customer’s perception.

In a customer orientated strategy, delivering a quality service for a specific product should be based on a clear understanding of the target market. Understanding customer needs and knowing customer expectations could be the best way to close the gap.

The Knowledge Gap: The Gap between Consumer Expectation and Management Perception

The knowledge gap is the difference between the customer’s expectations of the service provided and the company’s provision of the service.  In this case, managers are not aware or have not correctly interpreted the customer’s expectation in relation to the company’s services or products. If a knowledge gap exists, it may mean companies are trying to meet wrong or non-existing consumer needs. In a customer-orientated business, it is important to have a clear understanding of the consumer’s need for service. To close the gap between the consumer’s expectations for service and management’s perception of service delivery will require comprehensive market research.

The Policy Gap: The Gap between Management Perception and Service Quality Specification

According to Kasper et al, this gap reflects management’s incorrect translation of the service policy into rules and guidelines for employees. Some companies experience difficulties translating consumer expectation into specific service quality delivery. This can include poor service design, failure to maintain and continually update their provision of good customer service or simply a lack of standardisation. This gap may see consumers seek a similar product with better service elsewhere.

The Delivery Gap: The Gap between Service Quality Specification and Service Delivery

This gap exposes the weakness in employee performance. Organisations with a Delivery Gap may specify the service required to support consumers but have subsequently failed to train their employees, put good processes and guidelines in action. As a result, employees are ill equipped to manage consumer’s needs. Some of the problems experienced if there is a delivery gap are:

• Employees lack of product knowledge and have difficulty managing customer questions and issues
• Organisations have poor human resource policies
• Lack of cohesive teams and the inability to deliver

The Communication Gap: The Gap between Service Delivery and External Communications

In some cases, promises made by companies through advertising media and communication raise customer expectations. When over-promising in advertising does not match the actual service delivery, it creates a communication gap. Consumers are disappointed because the promised service does not match the expected service and consequently may seek alternative product sources.

Case Study: Amazon.com

Amazon.com provides books, movies, music and games along with electronics, toys, apparel, sports, tools, groceries and general home and garden items. Amazon is a good example of an online business that tries to close the service gaps in order to thoroughly meet consumer expectations.

Understanding Customer Needs

From the time the consumer starts to shop at Amazon’s online store, Amazon will attempt to understand their expectations. From when a customer first makes a product selection Amazon creates a consumer profile and attempts to offer alternative goods and services that may delight the consumer. The longer the consumer shops at Amazon, the more the company attempts to identify their preferences and needs.

Customer Defined Standards

When a consumer buys a product from Amazon they selects the mode of delivery and the company tells them the expected number of days it will take to receive their merchandise.

For example: standard shipping is three to five days but shipping in one or two days is also available. The company has set standards for how quickly customers are informed when a product is unavailable (immediately), how quickly customers are notified whether an out of print book can be located (three weeks), how long customers are able to return items (30 days) and whether they pay return shipping costs.

These standards exist for many activities at Amazon from delivery to communication to service recovery.

Service Performance

Apart from defining their service delivery, Amazon goes one step further and delivers on its promises. Amazon performs! Orders often arrive ahead of the promised dates; orders are accurate and are in excellent condition because of careful shipping practice.

Customers can track packages and review previous orders at any time. Amazon also makes sure that all its partners who sell used and new books and other related items meet Amazon’s high standards. The company verifies the performance of each purchase by surveying the customer and posting scores that are visible to other customers.

Managing promises is handled by clear and careful communication on the website. Every page is very easy to understand and to navigate.
For example the page dealing with returns eliminates customer misunderstanding by clearly spelling out what can be returned. The page describes how to repack items and when refunds are given. The customer account page shows all previous purchases and exactly where every ordered item is in the shipping process

Amazon strategy has been well received by its customers and the Amazon brand is known worldwide.

Conclusion

Effective product management is a complex undertaking which includes many different strategies, skills and tasks. Product managers plan for creating the best products and operational excellence to maximize customer satisfaction, loyalty and retention. Recognising and closing gaps offers high quality customer service to the consumer and helps them to achieve their goal whilst maximising market position, market share and financial results through customer satisfaction. It also helps managers to identify areas of weakness and make improvements to a company’s service delivery.

Are your goals/objectives and tactics essentially the product strategy? If you’ve defined what you want to achieve (goals), the way that they can be measured (objectives), and then the plans for how to get there (tactics), isn’t this essentially your product strategy?

A product strategy includes goals, objectives, and tactics; however, what differentiates it from other strategic documents is the purpose and supporting content that explains — and perhaps even justifies — how the strategy will meet its goals. The product strategy will ultimately be the document that guides the Product Manager’s decisions through Product Management activities over a specific time period.

The product strategy’s overall purpose is to help your company achieve corporate goals and therefore should be aligned to the corporate strategy. The corporate strategy should direct the goals for the product strategy.

As the document is strategic, it should also include how the product strategy will be competitive. An assessment of the market should be conducted before you write your tactical plan and can consist of one or more of these elements:

• Competitor analysis
• Product comparisons
• Market and industry trends
• Customer insight
• Structure of current product/brand offerings

The information from this research will help you build a SWOT analysis, identifying areas where you might want to focus your product strategy to help you gain an advantage over your competitors’ products. If the strategy is for a completely new product, it’s often better to conduct your research and analysis using Porter’s Five Forces.

Sometimes, I do my research before I define my product objectives or at this point I go back to my objectives and refine or add to them. I also do a quick check to make sure the focus of my strategy is still in line with my goals.

A good reference tool to help you think through your product strateg(ies) is Ansoff’s Growth Share Matrix:

You can now start to draft your tactics and from this you should also start to think through what resources you will need to implement the strategy. The last section should be dedicated to how you would evaluate progression and the attainment of your goals and objectives throughout implementation. It can also include key milestones.

As a final note, remember that all strategies are living documents. They guide decisions but may also need to respond and change with the market so regular research is required to ensure your strategy maintains relevant.

But then I found out about Motorola’s W233 Renew – “the first certified Carbonfree cell phone on the market”, and I became curious about whether this trend to make eco-friendly phones have caught on with other companies - and it has.

The sweep to offer more environmentally sustainable products are hitting the mobile technology world and it’s more than just a race. It’s a challenge for companies to prove they can be high-tech, innovative, environmentally conscious and profitable all at the same time.

Sony Ericsson and Nokia are both exploring green phone concepts. Respectively the GreenHeart phone and Nokia Remade are under innovation.

Samsung actually released a few eco-friendly mobile handsets mid-2008, but the word is there is something even better coming out in the UK later this year – the solar powered, touch screen Samsung Blue Earth. This one I’m excited about.

Despite being environmentally friendly, until consumers come to trust that being green does not equate to bare minimum product features and technology, their quality and performance will always be questioned. Then again, maybe things will change sooner than we think.

To see a brief comparison of eco-friendly features for the mobile phones mentioned in this blog, click here.

If you’re thinking about switching to an eco-friendlier handset, you can recycle your old phones in Australia with MobileMuster.

However, there is often a gap between user intuition and just not knowing how a product functions. The cleverest designs may not be as intuitive or user-friendly to your target market as one may think, even after usability testing.

As Product Managers we close this inexperience gap by providing tools to help customers become more familiar with the product and its features after it’s been purchased. However, these tools are often black and white, jargon-packed, text-heavy product manuals that are tedious to read. Some users may never even refer to them.

Every aspect of the product contributes to the user experience, including product manuals. These additional tools can encourage and enhance the user’s interactions with the product leading to greater product appreciation and value. Closing the user inexperience gap is more than informing them about the product and its features; it’s also about building a stronger bond between the user and the brand.

When thinking through your product marketing, make the most of opportunities that directly contribute and influence your customers’ experience. Build the relationship between your product and the user post-purchase by creating engaging product manuals and other such reference tools. Here are four simple tips on how we can maximise this opportunity:

1. Design the reference tools with your target audiences in mind.
a) Be clear on the kind of information you need to communicate to your target market. For example, is it a guide to the products’ benefits and features or instructions for use and care?

b) Determine the best communication style and format – i.e. manual, tutorial, fact sheet, or demonstration.

c) Select the preferred media your target audience would like to receive this information. This may include on-line, print, CD or DVD, or even a workshop. Consider the amount of information to be communicated and the complexity of your product when choosing the media. Some product reference tools come in both print and in a fun, interactive format on-line.

d) Be sure to include content, images and language that will appeal to your target audience.

2. Beat post-purchase dissonance.
Affirm customers that they have made the right choice in purchasing your product. It may be as simple as congratulating them on their purchase, welcoming them as a new proud owner, or commenting their status as one of a large community of people who have also made the same decision. Affirmation is particularly important for customers who invest time, money and effort to research and think through the decision to purchase a product.

3. Reserve budget for the design and production.
As an integral part of the product, sufficient budget should be allocated to create the right compelling tools. Knowing how to offer the information at the start of the development process will help you set aside the appropriate amount.

4. Equip the sales and customer service staff.
Give your sales and customer service staff the full experience. Train customer-facing staff to use and be familiar with the product and the reference tools so they can better sell and assist customers. Encourage sales and customer service staff to refer customers to the reference tools to help minimize calls to customer contact centers for further assistance.

5. Surprise by exceeding expectations.
Exert your creativity and give your target audience something different and unexpected. If they are accustomed to pulling out that boring black and white manual, provide something special. If no reference tools are normally provided, insert a new perspective on the product and its accessories. Nothing beats a pleasant surprise; something to get the user extra excited about the product.

Give your customers the whole product experience. Close the inexperience gap by strengthening the bond between the user and the product by providing engaging tools that enhances the user experience post-purchase.

As someone who boasts a 99% success rate, perhaps we can learn something from Patti’s technique to create and match products to customers. Here are some of my observations of how she helps her customers find true love:

1. Find out exactly what your customers want in the ideal or “perfect 10” product.

2. Be honest and upfront about customer expectations and demands. If the demand is unrealistic for any particular reason, it should be shared. This provides the customer with an understanding of why the product may not be a perfect 10 while explaining how the product will still be more than sufficient to meet their needs.

3. Be up-to-date with industry and customer trends. Being able to explain the current marketplace and openly compare product options to customers will build their trust in you and your brand.

4. Discuss what alternatives your customers are willing to accept or how flexible they are willing to be with product features.

5. Set up a date. Conduct market research by allowing customers to review product prototypes and provide feedback on the products they prefer.

6. Ask them to select only one of the prototypes for a lengthier trial period. See if a love for the product develops.

7. Understand why the customers did or did not fall in love with your product. If not, see if you can better match their requirements in a product in the next round.

As Product Managers we can be seen as our company’s product matchmakers. We have the important task to forge long-term relationships between our customers and our products.

Do Your Customers LOVE Your Product?

To meet their sustainability objectives some companies are launching eco-friendlier products that are

• energy-saving
• recyclable or bio-degradable
• use recycled or organic raw materials, and/or
• manufactured in an environmentally neutral method

These requirements are just a few of many that Product Managers may need to consider in environmentally sustainable product design and development.

As a Product Manager there are various approaches that can be considered and adopted in your Product Management methodology for creating sustainable, eco-friendly products. These include:

Eco-efficiency: reducing the products overall environmental impact by reducing the waste of natural resources during development and after the sale and consumption of the product. For example, energy-saving appliances, water efficient shower heads, and biodegradable detergents.

Cradle to Cradle Life-Cycle: a concept that promotes a product design where the product at the end of its life-cycle can become a resource for use in another life-cycle (natural or product). This concept opposes the cradle to grave life-cycle where a product cannot be re-used, or absorbed by the natural environment without a negative impact, at the end of its life. A number of notable companies have had their products cradle-to-cradle certified from Aveda beauty products to designer furniture by Herman Miller.

ABCD Framework: seeks to incorporate “sustainable design intelligence” within organizational behaviour. The framework includes “assessing materials impact; bridging functions and people for product re-design; creating learning; and diffusing lessons learned to help organizations with future decision-making”. This framework seeks to help Product Management teams evolve with the demand for sustainable products by helping them create and re-create products with sustainability in mind.

Product Sustainability Scorecards: A checklist of sustainability requirements to be met by the product. The scorecards are also used to compare and track sustainability achievements over time. For example, Volvo Car Corporation uses a sustainability scorecard that records value creation, social and environmental responsibility activity.

As consumer attitudes and corporations change to desire a more sustainable future, so will their expectations for products that leave a lower ecological footprint. It may be a time to review whether product strategies are aligned with corporate sustainability objectives.

Some of the highlights of his presentation for me were:

1. Developers need challenges during the Product Development process. Requirements should therefore NOT include solution definition statements but should detail the user needs. This will provide Developers with the scope and framework for delivering creative solutions.

2. Marketers should never write requirements. Leave that activity to Product Managers. And really… requirements should not be tomes.

3. Don’t forget to prepare your use cases before embarking on the requirements definition process. 

4. Product Managers are LEADERS and should behave like LEADERS.  AVOID take notes in meetings. Delegate this activity to someone else! You can’t lead the conversation if you’re buried in notetaking.

5. Agile wins! This comment generated a lot of conversation from the participants. There may be an agile development process but is there an agile product management process? Is there a way to fast track the requirements gathering and definition process? Can we embark on the agile devleopment path without understanding our buyers’ and users’ needs? I suspect not. Richard Kidd from Lexis Nexis saw agile as a way to deliver rapid validation of requirements.

View Alan’s full presentation.

Join us for our next Product Talks event on the 6th of August 2009. We’re talking “Product Management in an Agile World”. Should be a hotly debated topic amongst participants given the discussion during Product Talks #2.

If you would like to attend this Free event, please drop us an email at info@brainmates.com.au.

In an average workweek, we spend more than 40 hours navigating relations with colleagues, office spaces and the inner workings of the company as a whole. We’re no different here at Arc90. We wondered, “How many times a day do we see a way for the company to cut costs or make our Product Management processes better? How many ideas do we have about new business or ways to differentiate our products from the rest of the industry? And how much of this insight is lost because there’s no way to harness it?”

As a response to this need, we launched Kindling, an idea management tool that allows companies and organizations to recoup this lost brilliance and, more importantly, to allow ideas to grow into conversations that can become actionable.

And here’s the kicker: people are using it.

Since we launched Kindling last November, we’ve seen a variety of groups use our application: from the man who uses Kindling to organize his family (Where should we go on vacation? What should we invest in?) to the enterprises who want to organize their innovation thought processes. The app has shown itself to be a flexible way to organize brainstorming.

The thing is, we believe that smart companies care about hearing from everyone. We also believe that people in different positions can see the Product Management process from different angles; customer-facing staff, for example, will have good ideas on the best way for them to communicate customer feedback to Product Managers in a timely manner, while developers will have their own ideas of how product requirements are to be delivered. Inviting your entire Product Team to the conversation can develop even-keeled and strong process improvement ideas. And the importance isn’t who starts the conversation, but rather that the brainstorm is taking place in the first place.

What can you do to make sure your business is open to Product Management innovation? Here are a few thoughts we’ve come up with along the way:

1. Ensure that your colleagues feel as though they have a voice in helping the Product Management process evolve. People who have never participated in a conversation outside their department are involved in different aspects of the same company. In using Kindling, we found that the quietest members of our organization finally had a chance to speak up and the loudest members of our organization were finally able to get tangible about their ideas. What motivates these people to share ideas? Watching their ideas spawn brainstorms inspires them, as does the validation they feel when an idea they’ve submitted comes alive.

2. The real magic comes from collaborative opportunities. Though the traditional suggestion box allows members the space to submit a decent idea, ideas should be enriched and strengthened through conversation to get to a point where management can approve or reject them. Why are these ideas more likely to succeed? Simply because they’ve been through the ringer; with a larger group of people reviewing, commenting on and voting on ideas, the ideas that are approved by the Product Team as a whole are better equipped to stand on their own and get some real traction.

3. Use tools to facilitate and encourage your Product Team members to articulate and develop ideas for improving your Product Management process. Make sure these ideas and the conversations around them are recorded in a central, accessible database.

Kindling has grown since its humble beginnings. Today the app boasts a number of features, ways to manage and motivate users and the ability to quantify innovation within an organization. We’re constantly growing and adding capabilities, listening to user feedback and reveling in success stories.

In these challenging times, it’s important to remain open to new paths and unique strategies to improve your Product Management process so you can launch your products ahead of time. How will your organization find it’s next great Product Management idea? It’s a question worth thinking about.