Voice of the Customer....how do you speak to it?

Everyone knows that the voice of the customer must be heard in order for a requirement to be valid. But, how do we handle it when this voice is ....... all wrong.

All too often, we come up like cape crusaders, with noble intentions to solve a problem. And, we could, if left to our own devices. We use our metrics to demonstrate value for a solution that we know will work. We expect to win the enemy over to our side using hard facts and plain simple logic. When we are done, we expect they would be adopting our ways, success on hand, marching off to the sunset ....... as would a dream customer.

Little do we know, the customer engaged us with a bias, an expectation for a solution they have in their heads, that they use over and over, with repeated failure. (After all, wasn't this why we were called to the rescue?)

Not any of our metrics works to sway this customer. It does defy logic, but, this customer decides to go the opposite way from what the metrics say they should. I wonder. Would I have met with more acceptance if I probed my customer for this expectation and tailored my communication of my solution to that expectation (that is, instead of trying to push my agenda using my own communication style)? Maybe, I should have tailored the message to the way this customer wanted to hear it.

Speak the language of the audience!

This should be so obvious, but, I fall into this constantly.

Assuming that your audience speaks your language in the same context almost guarantees miscommunication. One big lesson I learned from professionally being in many places is that people learn to communicate in their niche. This means the same sentence (even word) may imiply different things to a different environment.

One shop may use the term 'resolved' to imply 'issue closed'. In another, it may just mean 'recovered for this incident'.

As objective as I try to make my arguments are, for or against a point I am tryring to make, it is never as clear to everyone all at once. Frustrating, but, a fact of life, so it needs to be taken in account in all interpersonal interaction.

Value is subjective!!

Just got this nugget of wisdom from economists Tom Walker, Sr and Jr of Praexis Labs.

Sounds simple, yet, explains perfectly why when I presented a clear business case for an obvious win for a stakeholder, they picked the exact opposite. Let me explain.

Let me demonstrate on a generic simplistic example.

Given:

• Option A, with a cost of $1 and an ROI of $12 over 10 days;

versus,

• Option B, with a cost of $1 and an ROI of $5 over 5 days

Translated to the same measurement system over the same period, Option A's ROI is $6 and Option B's is $5. Would seem obvious to me that the stakeholder would pick Option A over B given they would stand to benefit.

Fact: My stakeholder picked Option B. Now, why would they do that?

Did not consider the definition of VALUE to my customer. The obvious, which is COST, might not be what my customer considered of VALUE. As objective as COST appeared to be, it was not to this stakeholder.

Initially, it did not occur to me that the stakeholder may have cared more about image or perception management, which could not have anything to do with costing the problem at hand, or improvement metrics.

This stakeholder's concept of VALUE was actually subjective. Interesting!!