Have you ever wondered if your brilliant idea actually meets your customers’ requirements?
Finding out what your customers want (and need), then tailoring your product or service accordingly seems obvious. The problem is that too many of us don’t do it.
It may seem a simple concept, and it is, but don’t underestimate the journey that it takes to strike gold. Listening to customers and learning from them can pay big dividends.
As we saw with today’s announcements, Apple is renowned for thinking outside the square and developing products that are not traditional. A big part of their success comes from listening to their customers and responding to market demands.
Initially when Apple launched the iPhone they believed that so-called web applications were the way to go. After the launch, it became evident from the large number of developers writing applications in native iPhone code, that this is what their customers wanted. So Apple changed their mindset and allowed developers to write native apps. In fact, they saw an even bigger opportunity and opened the Apple App Store.
By September 2008, three months after the introduction of the App Store, users had downloaded 100 million native apps. There have since been a number of versions of the iPhone driven by consumer demand, and apps have made it a goldmine for Apple.
Apple has shown that you can make mistakes, but if you learn from them and constantly work at being relevant to your customers there can be a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow.
Are you listening to your customers?