Today a typical value chain has many layers between products designers and customers who use the products. These are distributors, retailers, marketers, sales, and many other managers. This results in product designers who design safety products but never or rarely speak to people who actually need to be safe, food designers who make food perfect for supermarkets but unhealthy for consumers, entertainment companies which bet their investments on few people instead of just talking to the audience.
Managers know this problem but were not able to solve it for decades. There were many attempts such as complaint boxes, focus groups, market research methods, polls, and social media and big data. But if we ask a product designer how much contact they had with a customer they will say none or too little.
This is a substantial business risk. Access to customers is a valuable resource and a competitive advantage. Customers can not talk to many companies at once, their attention is limited, and the first company that starts a conversation with them will have a substantial advantage.
Customer conversation is openness – ability of a company to engage customers and stakeholders in an open conversation. Purpose of openness is always to innovate because, simply, this is what customers and stakeholders want. Innovation is the main goal of the company and the main value customers want – they want new things that are better than old things.
openinnovation.me and our services are focused on developing customer conversation as a strategic resource making our clients more competitive. To start a conversation with your customers contact Andrea Toniolo at andrea@openinnovation.me.
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