Anybody building any solution for a customer knows that learning from customers helps them build better solutions. But most people don’t do so. What gets in the way ? In today’s post, let’s dig into common problems that get in the way and how to get around them.

Common reasons you will hear Product Managers (PM), product teams or founders give for not being spending time learning from customers.
I don’t have to because I am the customer
I already know what they want
I don’t have the time
I don’t know where to start
I don’t have access to customers
I don’t know how to talk to them
Research was already done
I don’t have to because I am the leader of the team
All of these are just excuses. None of these should get between you and your customer.
I don’t have to because I am the customer
It sometimes might work when a product manager is a customer too. In other words, the PM has a problem that their product is solving for. But even in such scenarios it is risky to conclude that you don’t have to talk to your customer because you are one yourself. You can never be representative of the customer because
The customer job that they are trying to complete might be different than that of others. You might be need a basketball to train indoors in a gym but somebody else might need to play outside in the dark. This means that the actual problem might be different for different customer
Your life and context is different from others. There are social, emotional and other factors that are round a customer problem. Understranding these from different customers is critical to build a product that helps more than the one customer who is you.
Different solutions might work for different people with the same problem
I already know what they want
The most dangerous reason is when you think you know enough about the customer and you don’t need anymore customer input. This will definitely put you on the path to failure because there are so many aspects to understand beyond the original need. You won’t have insights into the right kind of customer who will use your product if you build an entire product on a small sample size. You won’t be able to keep up with the changing context of the customer jobs or their problems.
I don’t have the time
The most important job of a product manager is to learn from the customer. Know that if you don’t have time for it, then you are a victim of your calendar and failing at your job. Start by replacing just 1-2 hours of less essential meetings in your calendar with learning from the customer. Just listen to a customer service call, read reviews about your product or watch videos of previous customer research. This is just a start. As you get into the habit of customer focus time, start adding customer interviews to them.
I don’t know where to start
There are dedicated customer-facing teams in the company. Start by reaching out to somebody on the User Research, Market Research, Sales, or Customer Success teams. They can help you find simple ways to talk to customers or share with you their tools and resources for you to leverage. This is just a start. The end state would be where you are directly interacting with customers regularly yourself.
I don’t have access to customers
Some companies have strict policies in place before an employee can talk to a customer. These are put in place to protect customer interests. Make sure you understand them before doing any customer interviews. While this is a formal method to interact with customers, your learning can’t stop because of that. You can have conversations with random strangers to learn about their habits, needs, joys, and problems. Especially when you really want to learn about customers and not worry about getting feedback for your product, this is a great technique
I don’t know how to talk to them
Talking to customers is a developed skill and not everybody might be good at it from the very beginning. To start with just follow these simple rules
Be curious about everything that the customer is sharing. Dig in and understand more about them. Follow up by asking them to show you.
You are not there to sell your ideas but learn about the customers
Don’t carry an interview questionnaire that you have to get through. Instead have an interview guide or learning objectives that you have just for reference on what you want to learn. But go wherever the customer takes you while you ensure you are learning what you were hoping for. for example, if you want to learn about their behaviors around brushing their teeth, try and get back to their life around it when they try and talk about how their banking system works.
Research was already done
There are research teams that learn from customers and synthesize insights for Product Managers. It is great you got your hands on that research. Such research might be ok for occasional reading but nothing is more effective than being fully involved in the qualitative research yourself to gain customer empathy and internalize your customer jobs.
I don’t have to because I am the leader of the team
That is great but that shouldn’t be the reason you don’t take the time to go out to learn yourself. Indirect customer empathy is not customer empathy at all. Without truly understanding your customers, you don’t quality to lead your team.
TL;DR There might be a million reasons that stop you from learning from your customers but all of them are just excuses and nothing should stop you from spending time with your customers if you want to build successful products/solutions that truly help your customers.
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