Customer needs alignment tool

Intention

Hypothesise how your customer's needs might have changed.

With all changes happening in the world, for many of us our priorities and values have shifted. What we knew to be true about our customers a few months ago may no longer be the case.

This tool is designed to help you reconnect with your customer's most pressing needs and hypothesise how they might have changed. Use it to ensure your product and service is still meeting relevant needs.

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Benefits

• Checks in with factors that help assess how customer needs could have changed
• Considers customer needs from multiple angles
• Helps to align your team around customer needs
• Helps you form an action plan for next steps based on hypotheses

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When to use it

• When external forces and events have taken place in the world, country, community or industry that you think might have an impact on your customers' behaviour
• When demonstrating to teammates or stakeholders what factors may be at play for new customer behaviours or needs
• If you want to check that you're still working with the correct customer needs when making decisions

Method

Step 1

Narrow and choose your customer cohort. Create focus by choosing a key customer group that requires immediate attention.

Step 2

Reconnect with what you already know about this customer cohort. Draw from existing knowledge and insights, or connect with subject matter experts in your organisation to articulate your customers' most pressing needs and their expectations of your brand and organisation.

Step 3

Now it's time to hypothesise about what change may have occurred for this cohort. Throw down any and all ideas you have. Work through questions 3-5, writing as many hypotheses or assumptions as possible. If you're working as a group you don't need to reach consensus (yet). Try not to limit yours or others thinking.

Step 4

Once you have generated multiple hypotheses or key assumptions, take some time to decide on the areas you wish to investigate further. Write these in box 6. If you are working as a group it can be helpful do a 'dot voting' exercise to determine which hypotheses are priorities.

Step 5

Make a plan for next steps.