Know your customers, shorten processes

Developments with customer glasses

Personae

It's not companies that buy products, it's people. People opt for services in order to obtain solutions to a problem or to fulfil new wishes. Therefore, knowledge of people with specific characteristics, needs and expectations is needed - a reference face of the target group, the "persona". These personae are quickly understood, accepted and adopted because of their humanity. A company-wide understanding of the customer is created. Data from market research, CRM, interviews or brainstorming with customer glasses can help in persona discovery. (Graphic 1)

Customer Journey Map

Before a customer makes a purchase decision, he has many points of contact with the company: He informs himself on the Internet, asks friends and acquaintances, calls a hotline or reads professional articles. In all interactions, he has positive or negative experiences, for example, very competent salespeople, long queues in a hotline, Ku-

Recognize what the customer thinks

lance services. The "customer experience" has become a central success factor. Today, these impressions are passed on faster than ever before as recommendations via Facebook, Twitter and blogs.

With accurate knowledge of ways to provide customers with a positive experience, it's worth evaluating customer experiences at touchpoints and looking for potential.

1. What points of contact does the customer have with the company?

2. What are the influencers at the touch points?

3. What are the customer's needs at the touch points?

4. How does the customer feel about the interactions?

5. Where are the most positive and negative experiences in the customer interaction processes?

6. what are the possibilities to positively surprise the customer at the touch points? (Graphic 2)

Voice of Customer Die

"Customer voices" are collected via experiences with a product or services in the product life cycle. In direct or indirect interviews, customer needs and expectations are collected and wishes for new products are identified. The method is used regularly to assess customer satisfaction.

Give the customer a face

The aim of this method is to ensure that the data is up to date and on the radar at all times. The advantages of this method lie in the availability of data on the

• Identification and prioritization of customer needs vs. product functions
•  Evaluation of problem areas
• Increase in turnover through product optimisation, expansion and supplementary services
• Positioning as a customer-oriented company

Development in cooperation with customers

open innovation

With the growing awareness that it is not an abundance of product functions that makes customers happy, but genuine added value, customers are becoming increasingly important in the innovation process. There is a shift in attitude from "we know what the customer wants" to "openness to the knowledge and experience of others". Early collaboration with suppliers and customers can reduce the high flop rate of over 70 percent for new developments.

Innovation management software solutions support the collaborative approach to idea generation inside and outside a company. They map the process from idea input, discussion to submission of ideas. The discussion enables the further development of ideas with new solutions, information, images, links or even other benefits. The ideas can be evaluated online, selected and earmarked for the next development step.

Crowdsourcing

Migros, SBB, Rivella, Nivea, Axa and BMW are already using it: the knowledge and skills of a broad or selected group of customers. Crowdsourcing is a cheap and fast method that is also feasible for SMEs. Current development steps or ideas are discussed in a virtual "lab" on the company's own homepage. Interaction with the masses is also possible with free providers such as "Atizo". This makes customer opinions and ideas visible and, if suitable, can be implemented in development. With crowdsourcing, products can be tested for the fulfillment of customer benefits before they are launched on the market.

Netnography

This online customer analysis is based on observations of user behavior (ethnology) on the Internet (Net). Based on a defined procedure, customer behaviour and opinions are analysed qualitatively and anonymously. Netnography can be used to obtain information on existing customer needs, new wishes, ideas, attitudes towards the company or the service. At the same time, the usage itself can be analysed by observing the platform (how often people communicate, when they communicate, who interacts with whom, etc.).

At the same time, the anonymous approach supports an uninfluenced expression of opinion. The users are alone in their familiar environment and can express themselves really openly and in their own language in this neutral environment. This is of great value for effective marketing communication as well as for the creation of new services.

Process optimization in product management

Agile product management

Product life cycles are becoming shorter and shorter and development times longer and longer. With agile product management (APM), these times can also be reduced for hardware developments.

APM is a structured approach that enables rapid customer feedback and requires cooperation with all interfaces and stakeholders.

QuickCustomerFeeds

There is a product owner who is responsible for the entire product (project, marketing, product), seeks constant communication with the team and stakeholders, and prioritizes the wishes for the highest customer benefit, effort, and return. Instead of extensive market analyses and product planning, a product vision is created that roughly describes advantages, benefits, functions and the revenue model.

The requirements specification is replaced by a product backlog that contains user stories (needs) prioritized according to customer benefits. Only the highest prioritized user stories are processed. The priorities and estimates are dynamic and are regularly adapted to new requirements and development outputs. Stakeholder feedback is gathered with frequent and early releases using models, simulations or test versions. In this way, the achievement of product goals can be checked at short intervals (sprints) and little time passes before the next development step is assessed.

APM optimally ensures high customer value and faster time to market and motivates the teams, which work together cross-functionally and independently organized. APM also requires saying "no" and concentrating on the essentials in order to achieve the company's goals. (Chart 3)

Know product costs at an early stage

Shouldcosting

In a product development, the cost estimate of the possible product costs is important for the contribution margin calculation. Today, many hours are spent in product development, purchasing and product management evaluating the possible product costs and often vague assumptions decide the estimate.

Shouldcosting allows costs to be viewed as a function of the products with the highest cost drivers based on existing suppliers. Early cost modeling forms the basis for cost reductions and the elimination of redundancies: before production - by enabling the evaluation of alternative concepts; in the product lifecycle through fact-based and quantifiable material savings leading to better margins or cheaper products.

lean product management

"Lean management" was created to improve efficiency and quality in production systems by optimally aligning value-adding activities and eliminating waste. Today, production cycles are largely optimized and potential is sought in non-productive areas such as product management.

25 percent of daily working time is wasted on unnecessary tasks. That's about 10 hours per week! How many strategically important tasks or customer meetings could be conducted or overtime avoided in this time?

Solutions:

• Cross-interface file storage for product information
• Updated Product Factbooks
• Reliable controlling data at any time
• Plausible estimation of product costs
• Standardized innovation management process
•  Self- and time management

Summary

When market shares dwindle, products are launched too late or product goals are not met, new ways are needed to get back on track for success. In workshops, it is easy to find out whether the efficiency in the development process should be increased, the products need more customer benefits or a uniform understanding of the customer is needed for successful development. It is a fact that earlier customer involvement and better time-to-market increase competitiveness. Some of the methods presented also require a new mindset to integrate the opinions and knowledge of "the others" as early as possible. However, the opportunities are too great to be left to the competition.