Comments on: Mike Arrington is Wrong: Making Users Happy is Not a Suckers Game! http://www.broadbandevolved.com/my_weblog/2009/04/mike-arrington-is-wrong-making-users-happy-is-not-a-suckers-game.html Inbound Broadband is the future of SMB marketing. Here’s why. Wed, 14 Oct 2009 13:27:10 -0400 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.8.3 hourly 1 By: Jon Pelson http://www.broadbandevolved.com/my_weblog/2009/04/mike-arrington-is-wrong-making-users-happy-is-not-a-suckers-game.html/comment-page-1#comment-167 Jon Pelson Mon, 20 Apr 2009 19:39:25 +0000 http://www.broadbandevolved.com/my_weblog/?p=595#comment-167 You're both right (less confrontational than saying you're both wrong, I guess.) If you're trying to come up with a novel solution using breakthrough technology, you can't sit in your lab and invent it, based on intuition and technical brilliance. But you also can't ask the customer what they want, because they can't articulate an answer if they can't grasp the possibilities the technology brings. The best chance of success comes from spending time with the customer (yes, walk a mile their shoes) and then working in your lab to come up with the solution they didn't know could exist. You need to build a knowledge of the problem, infer how your technology can solve that problem, and then focus your efforts on addressing the issues at the heart of the problem. As for delighting the customer, I prefer giving them a solution that is better than the alternatives and then charging them so much they almost refuse to pay for it. Almost. You’re both right (less confrontational than saying you’re both wrong, I guess.) If you’re trying to come up with a novel solution using breakthrough technology, you can’t sit in your lab and invent it, based on intuition and technical brilliance. But you also can’t ask the customer what they want, because they can’t articulate an answer if they can’t grasp the possibilities the technology brings.
The best chance of success comes from spending time with the customer (yes, walk a mile their shoes) and then working in your lab to come up with the solution they didn’t know could exist. You need to build a knowledge of the problem, infer how your technology can solve that problem, and then focus your efforts on addressing the issues at the heart of the problem.

As for delighting the customer, I prefer giving them a solution that is better than the alternatives and then charging them so much they almost refuse to pay for it. Almost.

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