How to successfully get your customers` jobs done?
To introduce or innovate a new product to your customers, a lot of factors need to be considered before starting a product development project. One question is always asked: is the new product going to be popular in the market when launched? Some of us would apply some market surveys in order to find some hints, but more accurate is to understand what “job” a customer needs to get done first and whether new product can complete their jobs.
When Prof. Clayton Christensen fist introduced, he cited an example of milk shake - a product to get a job done to customer > easy to drink, carry and hold while driving; plus keep hungry away in the morning. So, milk shake is more popular in the morning drive through customers than other products like donuts, bagels and even coffee.
To think of a case in HK. We can think of a successful product called Octopus Card, which it gets customers` job done - to have daily lives in HK easily, conveniently, quickly and safely.
When Octopus Card was launched, a customer can use it to pay and get on public transportation quickly and conveniently, as compared to pay by coin, cash or to buy a physical ticket first, which is inconvenient. As Octopus Card becomes more popular, it satisfies other needs of our daily lives, from breakfast, lunch, coffee, dinner, car park, shopping, etc. In addition, its limit of maximum stored value gives less impact of card if stolen or loss (except those linking to automatic value-adding). Although nowadays many other e-payment methods in the market, Octopus Card still seems to be the most popular one in Hong Kong, in fact more places have such contactless card payment methods too.
So do you know what are your customers` jobs that need to be done?
Thank you very much for reading our articles, do you have any comment? We would love to hear your views on this topic.
Source(s): HBR, Clayton Christensen.
