Voice of the Customer may be one of the most misunderstood concepts in the product management process. Unfortunately any survey or conversation with a customer these days is labeled as "Voice of the Customer" and just viewed as a "check box" item. In this discussion we will describe how there are different approaches to collecting the Voice of the Customer and how the wrong approach will unintentionally bias the results that are obtained. We will relate different Voice of the Customer approaches with project portfolio classifications for product development. Recommendations for how to apply them in different segments of the value chain will also be provided. About the Speaker: Dr. Jose A. Briones is a Sr. Consultant with C-Level Advisors a team of senior level experts and analysts that work with companies in developing business strategy, acquiring and integrating companies, creating alliances, creating go-to-market strategies, and designing product portfolios. He has 20 years of commercial and technical experience in the manufacturing and technology industries, holding positions in the areas of marketing, innovation, sales, engineering and R&D. Dr. Briones has been the leader in the commercialization of over 40 products in the fields of chemicals, materials, apps and cloud software in the U.S., Europe and Latin America. He has been named as inventor in 7 patents. Upcoming Events Reserve your seat for the next AIPMM webinar. Visit: http://aipmm.com/aipmm_webinars/. Want To Certify Your Team? If you have a product team of 10 or more that you want to certify, visit: http://bit.ly/1bzjUYB. About AIPMM The AIPMM is the hub of all things product management. It is where product professionals go for answers. With members in over 65 countries, it is the worldwide certifying body of product team professionals. It is the world's largest professional organization of product managers, brand managers, product marketing managers and other product team professionals who are responsible for guiding their organizations, or clients, through a constantly changing business landscape. AIPMM's certification programs are internationally recognized because they allow product professionals to demonstrate their expertise and provide corporate members an assurance that their product management and marketing teams are operating at a high competency level. Visit http://www.aipmm.com. Call For Speakers: http://bit.ly/1b006vm Subscribe: http://www.aipmm.com/subscribe LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/company/aipmm Membership: http://www.aipmm.com/join.php Certification: http://aipmm.com/html/certification Articles: http://www.aipmm.com/html/newsletter/article.ph

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6. Today’s Speaker
Moderator:
Hector Del Castillo, PMP, CPM, CPMM
Presenter:
Jose A. Briones, Ph.D.
General Manager
Asset Panda
brioneja@spyrotek.com
@Brioneja
www.Brioneja.com
© AIPMM 2013
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7. Jose A. Briones, Ph.D.
Twitter: @Brioneja
www.Brioneja.com

8. Agenda

In this discussion we will describe how there are different
approaches to collecting the Voice of the Customer and how
the misapplications of each approach will unintentionally bias
the results that are obtained.

We will present three different approaches for voice-of-thecustomer surveys: Product features, job-to-be-done and
unmet needs.

These different VOC approaches will be correlated with
project portfolio classifications for different levels of
innovation—incremental, radical or disruptive.

Recommendations for how to apply them in different
segments of the value chain will also be provided.
www.Brioneja.com
Twitter: @Brioneja

9. Background

Product innovation has been described as the
way out of today’s difficult business
environment.

The rate of success of development projects,
in particular disruptive innovation projects
remains too low.

We believe that a reason for the low success
rate is the erroneous application of analysis
methods designed for incremental innovation
to projects with high levels of uncertainty
www.Brioneja.com
Twitter: @Brioneja

10. Clayton M. Christensen
We keep rediscovering that the root reason for established
companies’ failure to innovate is that managers don’t have
good tools to help them understand markets, build brands,
find customers, select employees, organize teams, and
develop strategy”
• “There’s a better way for management teams to grow their
companies. But they will need the courage to challenge
some of the paradigms of analysis and the willingness to
develop alternative methodologies”
www.Brioneja.com
Twitter: @Brioneja

11. C. Christensen’s Disruptive
Innovation Models
Twitter: @Brioneja
www.Brioneja.com
www.Brioneja.com
Twitter: @Brioneja

12. Relationship Between Innovation Level
and Project Type
Level 1
• Disruptive Innovations
Level 2
• Platform Launches /
Radical Innovations
Level 3
• Incremental innovations &
individual product launches
www.Brioneja.com
Twitter: @Brioneja

13. Introduction

Voice of the Customer may be one of the
most misunderstood concepts in the
product management process.

Unfortunately any survey or conversation
with a customer these days is labeled as
“Voice of the Customer” and just viewed as
a “check box” item.
www.Brioneja.com
Twitter: @Brioneja

14. Introduction

Conflicting Advice:
 Specific questions vs. open-
ended questions
 Talk to your customers vs.
don’t talk to your customers

Problem: We can’t
interrogate our customers
for 48-hours straight.
www.Brioneja.com
Twitter: @Brioneja

15. Introduction

You have to make choices, and what
you actually ask your customers can
predetermine the type of answers and
information you get

The end result is that everybody who
talks to customers thinks, “Oh well, I got
the voice of the customer. I’m done.”
www.Brioneja.com
Twitter: @Brioneja

16. Henry Ford and VOC

Henry Ford and his affordable
automobiles also can be thought of
as disruptive innovation.

He is often quoted as saying, “If I
had asked people what they
wanted, they would have said faster
horses.”

That quote is often badly misused,
implying that since he wanted to
bring something very different to the
market, his customers were not the
right people to talk to.
www.Brioneja.com
Twitter: @Brioneja

17. Henry Ford and VOC

But it’s not about not talking to
customers, it’s about how you
talk to them.

If he had asked them exactly
what they wanted, sure they
would have said faster horses.

But in reality, a good product
manager would interpret that as
“I need faster transportation.”
www.Brioneja.com
Twitter: @Brioneja

18. Henry Ford and VOC

That’s what the customers are trying to
tell you, but they don’t know how to
because all they know is horses.

Ford did not follow a literal response
from the customer. He actually listened
to what they were saying the unmet
need was.
www.Brioneja.com
Twitter: @Brioneja

19. VOC Types

Clayton Christensen: Customers do not
buy products, they hire products to do a
job.
 Define the job your product is hired to do and the
benefit your customer gets from it

Harvard School Professor Theodore
Leavitt: “People don't want to buy a
quarter-inch drill; they want a quarter-inch
hole.”
 Compares product features vs. job-to-be-done.

However, there is a step further:
Sometimes the customer doesn’t even
know he needs to make a hole.
 The hole is a means of helping to solve a
problem.
www.Brioneja.com
Twitter: @Brioneja

20. Voice of the Customer Types
Level 1
Level 2
Level 3
• Unmet Needs – KJ Analysis
• Job to be Done
• Product Features
www.Brioneja.com
Twitter: @Brioneja

21. Voice of the Customer Styles
Level 1
Level 2
Level 3
• Broad, Open-ended, Shallow
• Hybrid Approach
• Narrow, Focused, Deep
www.Brioneja.com
Twitter: @Brioneja

22. Unmet Needs

Sometimes your customer cannot
provide you with enough information
about what they need.

The job of the voice-of-the-customer
survey here is to articulate that unmet
need, and then come up with a solution.

Nobody can describe what they want or
need before they really have it.
www.Brioneja.com
Twitter: @Brioneja

23. Unmet Needs

The questions you ask and even
observations on how people
interact with their surroundings
with their equipment can help you
define that need.

If a genie in a bottle granted you
three wishes what would they
be?

The drill customer that still does
not know he/she needs to make
a hole
 Need to understand the problem and
the need!
www.Brioneja.com
Twitter: @Brioneja

24. Unmet Needs - KJ Analysis

Relies on user observation

Structures a large number of user
statements and provides relations
between the statements
www.Brioneja.com
Twitter: @Brioneja

25. Unmet Needs

Unmet needs surveys tend to correlate
with “disruptive innovation,” which offers
improvements or benefits along a
different dimension.

For example, the unmet need for the
iPhone was an easy-to-use personal
computer in your pocket, but it was not
clearly articulated.
www.Brioneja.com
Twitter: @Brioneja

26. Job To Be Done

In the quarter-inch drill scenario, the customer
knows they need to make a hole and therefore
has a fair idea of the job that needs to be
done. They just don't have a solution.

The idea here is not that you come up with
one of your products as a recommendation.

First, understand the job, then go back to your
company and see if you even have a product
that can do the job. Perhaps it's not the right
opportunity for you.
www.Brioneja.com
Twitter: @Brioneja

27. Job To Be Done

The "job-to-be-done" approach plumbs the
deeper motivations surrounding use of your
product. Understand that, and you can
design products that attach themselves
more closely to satisfying customers'
needs. Hutch Carpenter

How deep is the hole you need? How
fast do you need to make it?
www.Brioneja.com
Twitter: @Brioneja

28. Job To Be Done

Job-to-be-done questions tend to correlate
with “radical innovation,” a quantum leap in
performance along the same performance
parameters
 One example is plasma vs. cathode ray tube
TVs.
 You’re still watching TV, and there’s no
fundamental difference in behavior. But there’s
a quantum-leap improvement in technology
and performance
www.Brioneja.com
Twitter: @Brioneja

29. Product Features

This line of questions revolves around
specific product features and attributes.

It is often tied to “incremental innovation,”
when you are introducing a new product
within your existing market and customer
base.
 Blackberry was known for this, churning out
phones with slightly improved features, until
they were hit by disruptive innovations like the
iPhone.
www.Brioneja.com
Twitter: @Brioneja

30. Product Features

When you are approaching an
incremental innovation, you need to be
very focused to get the product into the
marketplace quickly.
 You should already know the people using
your products and understand their needs.
 You should focus on product features and
design the survey questions around that.
 Asking questions about how they currently
interact with your product can help you
determine what can be improved.
www.Brioneja.com
Twitter: @Brioneja

31. Product Features
What color do you need the
drill to be?
 What should the price be?
 How heavy should it be
 Electricity or battery?

www.Brioneja.com
Twitter: @Brioneja

32. VOC Dependency On Value Chain
Raw
Materials
Supplier

Manufacturer
Converter
Retailer
Consumer
As innovation moves from incremental to disruptive,
VOC should be obtained further down or parallel to
the value chain, away from current customers
www.Brioneja.com
Twitter: @Brioneja

33. Voice of the Customer Targets
Level 1
Level 2
Level 3
• Blue Ocean Segments
• Adjacent Segments/Lead Users
• Existing Customer Base
www.Brioneja.com
Twitter: @Brioneja

34. IDEO KJ Analysis of Eclipse
Aviation Prototype

To design a brand new aircraft the size of an
SUV, a design team from Ideo asked pilots to
test a a mock-up with Post-it Note controls
• Source: Business Week
www.Brioneja.com
Twitter: @Brioneja

35. IDEO KJ Analysis of Eclipse
Aviation Prototype

Early research identified multiple problems
with the existing design. From a usability
perspective
www.Brioneja.com
Twitter: @Brioneja

36. IDEO KJ Analysis of Eclipse
Aviation Prototype

The team built a "mockpit" – a prototype cockpit with
foam core controllers and Post-it Note instruments
that they invited Eclipse test pilot Bill Bubb to "fly"
www.Brioneja.com
Twitter: @Brioneja

37. IDEO KJ Analysis of Eclipse
Aviation Prototype

As the designers gained flying knowledge, they would
move Post-its — representing instruments — around on a
printout of the cockpit panel, testing different positions
and groupings to find the optimal layout
www.Brioneja.com
Twitter: @Brioneja

38. IDEO KJ Analysis of Eclipse
Aviation Prototype

Eclipse Aviation's current design for the
500's instrument panel reflects many of
Ideo's recommendations
www.Brioneja.com
Twitter: @Brioneja

39. VOC Tips – Deborah Mills Scofield

Go to listen – open-ended questions –
don’t presuppose (which is so hard) and
don’t send just send the sales guy in!!!!! –

Do ‘day in the life’ – follow them around as
they do their jobs –
 if it’s B2C, watch then shop, watch how kids pile into
a minivan, SUV, what they eat, do with the trash etc.
– how a plumber does their thing etc. –
 if B2B, how they order your stuff, get help with your
stuff, get rid of your stuff, etc. – just follow them
around and shut up at first and then ask questions
about HOW, not how you’d do it
www.Brioneja.com
Twitter: @Brioneja

40. Summary

There are 3 different types of VOC
surveys and approaches

The type of VOC approach used will
predetermine the type of answers and
information you get

It is important to match the right VOC
approach to the right type of
development project
www.Brioneja.com
Twitter: @Brioneja

41. Conclusion

Henry Ford did not follow a literal
response from the customer. He actually
listened to what they were saying the
unmet need was.

But even if he had taken it literally, he
would have seen voice of the customer
for the valuable tool it is. There really is
a need for faster horses too.
www.Brioneja.com
Twitter: @Brioneja

42. Contact Information
Brioneja@SpyroTek.com
 www.Brioneja.com
 Twitter: @Brioneja

www.Brioneja.com
Twitter: @Brioneja

43. References
1.
The Entrepreneurial Mindset, 2000,
http://www.amazon.com/Entrepreneurial-Mindset-Continuously-OpportunityUncertainty/dp/0875848346/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1274888243&sr=1-1
2.
Innovation Killers, 2008,
3.
The Eclipse: Safety By
Design
http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/07_31/b4044
http://hbr.org/product/innovationkillers-how-financial-tools-destroy-you/an/R0801F-PDF-ENG?Ntt=innoation%2520killers
416.htm
4.
IDEO’s Shopping Cart Video
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M66ZU2PCIcM
www.Brioneja.com
Twitter: @Brioneja

44. Attribute Map Questions

Non Negotiable:
 Which three non negotiable attributes are the most expensive to
deliver? Can we do something creative to reduce their cost,
particularly in ways that competitors can’t imitate?

Differentiator
 Why does this segment buy from us and not the competition?
 What do we offer that customers not only like but are prepared to
pay a premium for?
 What do distributors and customers say we do better than anyone
else?
 How close is the competition to matching us on these features?

Exciter
 If a genie in a bottle granted us one wish that would allow us to
redesign our product or service and add or enhance an attribute in
such a way that we could capture huge market share, what would
we wish for? Is this within the realm of the possible for us?
www.Brioneja.com
Twitter: @Brioneja

45. 
Tolerable
 What features would our most important customer segments
list if we asked them to complete the following sentence: “If
only you could eliminate ________ from your offering, I
would buy a lot more often”
 Can we get rid of a tolerable in ways that competitors can’t?
How?
 Are we experiencing increasing complaints on this tolerable?
 To what extent are target customers beginning to compare
us unfavorably with the competition?

Dissatisfier
 On what subject do people who interact with customers hear




the most rumbling?
Is it something all providers do, or something only we do?
To what extent is this attribute a key reason for recent
customer defections?
To what extent is this attribute increasingly cited as a key
reason for product returns?
To what extent are our competitors advertising their
superiority with respect to this attribute?
www.Brioneja.com
Twitter: @Brioneja

46. 
Enrager
 Are people who are in contact with customers observing
reactions that go beyond minor irritation to enraging?
 Have customer written letters of complaint or otherwise
been proactively critical of this feature?

So What?
 Look at every expensive attribute and ask what its
elimination or reduction would do to sales
○ Why do we offer those attributes?
○ Are there any cost/complexity-reduction opportunities associated with
getting rid of them?
○ What are the three most expensive “nice to haves” we offer – that is,
features that we believe to be necessary but that customers appear
unwilling to pay for?
○ Is there a competitive reason to keep these features, or could we
eliminate them?
www.Brioneja.com
Twitter: @Brioneja

47. Price Sensitivity Analysis
At what price would it be so cheap that quality
is doubted?
 At what price would you consider this product
to be a bargain – a great value for the money?
 At what price would it start getting expensive,
but still worth considering?
 At what price is it so expensive that it would
not be considered at all?

www.Brioneja.com
Twitter: @Brioneja

48. Q&A
Moderator:
Hector Del Castillo, PMP, CPM, CPMM
Presenter:
Jose A. Briones, Ph.D.
General Manager
Asset Panda
brioneja@spyrotek.com
@Brioneja
www.Brioneja.com
© AIPMM 2013
www.aipmm.com

49. Upcoming Courses
Course & Location
Dates
ACPM® Certification Prep Course & Exam
McLean, VA
Dec 9, 2013
San Jose, CA
Jan 24, 2014
CPM® Certification Prep Course & Exam
McLean, VA
Istanbul, Turkey
San Jose, CA
Days Time
M
F
Dec 10-11, 2013 T, W
Jan 13-14, 2014 M,T
Jan 20-21, 2014 M,T
8:30 am – 5 pm
8:30 am – 5 pm
8:30 am – 5 pm
8:30 am – 5 pm
8:30 am – 5 pm
CPMM® Certification Prep Course & Exam
McLean, VA
Dec 12-13, 2013 Th, F 8:30 am – 5 pm
San Jose, CA
Jan 22-23, 2014 W, Th 8:30 am – 5 pm
Follow the links above for more information, or contact:
certification@aipmm.com.
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