Many may say that asking customers about product decisions is a waste of time and money, and argue that customers are not able to tell you what they want, or that they don't know what they want until they see it. They say that no customer would have told you they wanted a telephone, a microwave, or an iPad. Compounding the issue for development teams is that customers often do not know, or cannot communicate effectively, their actual needs and requirements. This is one of the major challenges facing businesses today. Because of this, businesses need to continue to find more creative methods of understanding customer requirements.

Part of the problem is that customers describe product attributes in consumer speak or customer speak while engineers and product developers talk in technical jargon which may be foreign to the consumer. If the customer says I want a better computer, are they asking for a computer with a faster processor, more memory, better memory management, a solid-state drive, increased bandwidth, or the ability to handle gaming as well as high-end business applications? If they ask for a more powerful car, do they want to go from 0 to 60 MPH in four seconds, or to have a top speed of 200 MPH, or do they just need the ability to tow a trailer?

Customers tend to talk in the language of needs, and it is our job, as product managers, engineers, or business owners, to develop the solutions to those needs. In the case of a microwave oven, customers were not asking for a microwave oven (the solution). Instead, they were saying they needed a way to heat up food quickly without drying it out and without taking the time or creating the mess to heat it on the range. As marketers, we need to get beyond the features or solutions or even specifications they ask for to understand the underlying needs they actually represent.

Ultimately, customers cannot always recognize or describe their needs in solutions or a specific set of attributes. As a result, customer needs often have to be interpreted from the raw data (but by using quotes whenever possible as they help to provide context). A customer might say they want a digital camera that is easy to use, with enough battery life to last all day, enough storage capacity to hold a full week's worth of picture shooting, the clarity to see the image on a large screen TV without being fuzzy, and the ability to do the occasional quick video. It is up to the marketing team, working with the engineering department, to define this product requirement into functional requirements, such as the number of megapixels, camera function and navigation, sensor size, battery life, composition, and so on.

While customers often cannot tell you the solution or the exact features or technical specifications they need in a new product, they are quite good at telling you their wants, needs, and the problems they are currently experiencing in their lives or work. What we need to do is to develop products inspired by customers, not designed by customers.

Sometimes, of course, there are innovations that address a customer need that customers had previously not known or been able to define, but such products end up being truly innovative and huge market successes. Twitter is one such example. However, if you uncover the thoughts behind products or services like these, you can see the customer voice loud and clear.