Occasionally, the problem that the customer is trying to solve is linked to another problem that the customer needs to solve. Recognizing and solving that unstated problem can be a tremendously powerful way of connecting with customers along the critical path.
For example, people like clean floors and buy floor soap products that get the job done. Procter and Gamble, the maker of Mr. Clean and other soap products, faced a dilemma—Mr. Clean’s sales were declining, and the marketing team thought that a “new and improved” formulation was needed to revive sales. However, the R&D chemists told them that Mr. Clean could not provide any more cleaning power without chemically damaging the floor. The company could make the product “new and improved” by tinkering with its smell or bottle size, but not by changing its basic formulation.
Steve Jobs of Apple fame preached that innovation comes from finding a customer’s unmet need and then creating an elegant way to meet that need. Craig Wynett, P&G’s then Director of Corporate New Ventures, took Job’s advice to heart. While watching his wife clean a floor, he wondered if the solution to cleaner floors was not just better soap chemistry. Instead, he formed a team of P&G insiders and external design consultants to look at the whole cleaning process from the consumer’s perspective.
Like anthropologists, they studied the whole cleaning process from buying the products to using, cleaning, and storing the product. They went into people’s homes and observed how they cleaned the kitchen floor. They asked questions about why they took the steps they did to get the floor clean. Why do you sweep first before mopping? Why are you rinsing your mop now? If the consumers scrubbed the floors on their hands and knees, instead of using a mop, they wanted to know why they thought this was a better process.
The team noticed that the water in the bucket got dirty very quickly. As the process progressed, the floor was being cleaned with increasingly dirty water. Halfway through the process, many people stopped to empty the bucket to re-start with fresh soapy water. When they were done cleaning, the people spent considerable time cleaning out the mop and bucket, then wringing the mop to help it air-dry. They spent almost as much time in that task as they did cleaning the floor. Plus, they complained that the mop always looked dirty and smelled funny.
From this research, the team realized that customers had all these challenges when cleaning their floors. A stronger Mr. Clean formula didn’t address any of them. Floor cleaning involved four steps: sweeping, cleaning, refreshing the bucket, and then cleaning the tools. Consumers didn’t articulate it, but these steps begged for a better solution.
Thus was born the Swiffer. It reduced the 4-step process into one step and yielded better cleaning results. Little wonder that it became one of P&G’s best and fastest growing products ever.
We can view the same phenomenon from a different perspective. Customers buying the same product might be using that product to solve different problems. An art dealer once explained the different motivations that drove individual buyers (as separate from institutional buyers, like museums or companies) at high-priced art auctions. According to her, a small number buy art truly for its artistic beauty and the subsequent pleasure derived from it. A second and larger group buys it not as art, but as an “investment.” It solves the problem of putting their money to use. If they win big, they get bragging rights. For some, the auction provided a form of gambling. The bidding wars got their adrenaline running, and they enjoyed the steely-eyed competition with other buyers. A final, large group consists of those whose participation in the auction is actually a form of signaling to others that they have money and are willing to spend it on “culture.” These folks are jockeying for social status and acceptance. Being a player in the auction provides access to certain social circles. Each of these customer groups is trying to solve a different problem.
All of the above examples I’ve used in the lessons of this part of the book—Coke, Uber & Lyft, Seven-Eleven-Japan, and Swiffer—call to mind my mother when she was introduced to the first-generation IBM personal computer in 1981. It took over 20 minutes to hook it up to a television screen (instead of a monitor). Its main feature at the time, besides word processing, was that you could play “Pong” on it. As the younger generation was marveling at this new invention and the future it might bring, she was unimpressed. She said, “When it can wash, dry, fold, and put away the laundry, I’ll be interested.” She stated the problem she needed solved very clearly. Computers then and now still don’t solve it—which means a business opportunity is still waiting for an innovator to meet that unmet need.
Critical Path Action Items
What is the underlying need of your major customers?
Is that need connected to another need? I.e. do they want cleaner floors and a less onerous process of keeping them clean?
Are your customers trying to solve different problems, as in the art auction example? If yes, what are the major ones?