It is obvious that any business would identify a problem for consumers and offer product/service that would solve their problems. However, some businesses would forget this crucial step of establishing new product/service and would focus on the business’s growth. This would cost significant loss for the business and might result a backlash for consumers that might lead to boycott. In this article, I will be going into details how to identify a customer’s problem and what approach to solve it.
First, it is important to understand the actual state, which is the actual state of how things are, and the ideal state, which the state of how the customers expect things to be. Thinking of a fitness center for example, the actual state is that the center is mostly crowded, limited social interaction, no personalization, and no tracking. The ideal state would be establishing an app to reserve a time to exercise, building in-app social community, exercise library, and advanced analytics.
Understanding the actual state and move to the ideal state would improves the fitness center’s value proposition, boosts user engagement, and better meets users’ needs. It will also lead to higher user satisfaction and possibly a larger market share. On the other hand, if the fitness center ignored its consumers needs and focused on business growth such as increasing market volume share by membership specials, their consumers would lose interest and search for alternatives.