Don’t Listen to the Customer

Don’t Listen to the Customer

Business and Strategy
Customers have an endless supply of valuable feedback and their input is useful for near term actions.  When a company is looking at longer term developments, listening to what the customer is not saying can be more important than what the customer is saying. Let me give you an example.  Early in the 20th century, consumers were interested in horse breads that could travel faster for longer periods of time.  Early pioneers in the car business looked past the requests of the customers to see the real need as a more effective way to get from place to place.  These consumers had already been introduced to travel by trains and realized the ability to go faster using mechanized transportation but still desired the ability to travel at will. (more…)
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