You can't ask customers what they want!!

This statement seems like a real challenge.  We have all been told to pay attention to the customer and find out what they desire.  But according to these remarks....often the customer has trouble imagining or identifying to you what the BIG desire would be.  As stated, your role in the firm is to keep close to the customer.....watch their behavior.....implement various tests in order to find out empirically what they want.  Not easy, but it can be done.

You can't ask customers want they want

... not if your goal is to find a breakthrough. Because your customers have trouble imagining a breakthrough.

You ought to know what their problems are, what they believe, what stories they tell themselves. But it rarely pays to ask your customers to do your design work for you.

So, if you can't ask, you can assert. You can look for clues, you can treat different people differently, and you can make a leap. You can say, "assuming you're the kind of person I made this for, here's what I made."

The risk here is that many times, you'll be wrong.

But if you're not okay with that, you're never going to create a breakthrough

   Seth Godin blog  Jun 2016  

Hope you find this valuable......Steve Brody