What customers really want....? #2

So at the end of What customers really want....? #1 I was questioning whether there was a flaw in lean and systems thinking, from the point of defining value as relating to customers - because it assumes they know what they want. 


Exactly.

What if they don’t know precisely what it is they want?

You could also define value as what the customer is prepared to pay for. Again, that raises a conundrum: what the customer may (be prepared to) pay for may not be ultimately what they want – even from a value sense!

Take the example of when you go to a restaurant. You have chosen that particular restaurant because you like the food, the waiting staff are friendly, the atmosphere is pleasant. But when you are presented with the menu you are torn between ordering the steak or a curry. The decision very much comes down to how you are feeling on that particular day as much as dietary and taste preferences. You think you fancy something spicy because all you have eaten the past couple of days is something bland. So you order curry. It comes, it’s very nice but it leaves you with heartburn afterwards.

You have finished your main meal. You regret choosing the curry and wish you’d had the steak instead, if only to avoid the heartburn. By then it’s too late, and really, you made that decision so you have to live with it. Perhaps if you had your choice again then you would have chosen differently. Who knows? But you’re left not entirely satisfied with your experience of the evening. It kind of matched expectations, but at the same time fell short. You still pay the bill at the end – you cannot argue with the restaurant that they didn’t deliver what you wanted because you chose that item from the menu – nobody held a gun to your head and made you choose curry over steak!


In a world away from restaurants and back in construction - where decisions can be made many years in advance of knowing who the end-user/customer really is, it can fall to the client and their team to make those decisions on behalf of their customer. From this all else in lean/systems thinking flows (purpose - to meet customer demand, SIPOC, and so on).....


So my questions are this (and I don't have the answers yet - so happily welcome your thoughts):


- Do we make too many assumptions about what the customer wants because 1) we may not know who the end-user/customer is, and 2) even if we do, they don't really know their own minds (indecisive - "product out" v "customer in" thinking)?
- How can you prevent customers from having regrets after you've delivered to them what they (you) thought they wanted?
- Do we pressurise customers into choosing things because there isn't enough time to fully explore all the options? If so, how can we make time?

It is too easy to identify who the customer is, make assumptions about what they really want (taking it for granted that when asked they really know their own minds - how many of us can say that truthfully & with total commitment to follow through without disappointment at the end?) and from that build a whole product that purports to meet that exact demand. 


And that's assuming we know our end user!