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Antipattern #27 · curiosity · p. 227
Using Proxies for Customers
Deep obsession with getting close to and understanding real customers ensures long-term impact.
The Tin Man Behavior
Relying on inadequate proxies like internal voices, assumptions, past experiences, and easy-to-implement metrics to avoid the messy work of engaging directly with actual customers.
The Results
- ·Missed opportunities to meet unidentified customer needs
- ·Increased irrelevance to evolving existing customers
- ·Wasted resources on mismatched products/services
How Octopus Organizations Behave Instead
- ↳They directly engage with real customers and invest in deep quantitative and qualitative understanding.
- ↳They are obsessed with and positively paranoid about customers' changing needs.
- ↳They anticipate needs beyond what customers tell them.