Observing Your Customer Needs

1. Introduction

Observation methods in general are appropriate to observe behaviors of customers directly rather than self reported behaviors. Therefore these methods are more reliable to identify customer needs.

The advantages of observation techniques reach from removing major causes of error in market research like memory loss, poor recall and perceptions affected by experiences after the original experience, over reducing errors of translation, to using samples of behavior instead of signs of behavior. Observational research as well affords providing richer data sets including non-verbal and physical behavior, uncovering unconscious behaviors and providing context. The fact that this method focuses on actual behavior makes it more expensive than the cheaper self-reports but offers generally higher value (Walden 2003 & OPC)

Nelson & Ross (2005) noted that research on product development and innovation effectiveness over the last years has shown that comprehending customer unmet needs is definitely critical to success.

That's the reason why lately observation techniques used to uncover customer problems, needs and aspirations and for product development, have obtained a great deal of attention (Becker 1999).

Leonard & Rayport (1997) notice that through observational research companies can identify needs that customers may not recognize by themselves.

Therefore, companies such as Motorola, Gillette, Steelcase, and Xerox (Becker, 1999) send their researchers to the customersÒ' environments where they can watch and interview them in an everyday situation e.g. to uncover opportunities for completely new products.

The aim of these organizations is to gain insight in what the customer knows or thinks about a product or a situation, and even to enter the arena of "latent or unconscious needs"(Zaltman, 2003).