Feature Requests From Customers Are Really About Unsolved Problems

June 10, 2009 By 6 Comments

I recently read a nice post by Cindy Alvarez in her blog -  Saying “No” to… Feature Requests

One sentence in her post caught my eye:

…many requests for solutions are obscured insights into problems.

This is an excellent point by Cindy.

I’ve found this to be very true in my own experience as well.

Why Feature Requests From Customers Are REALLY About Unsolved Problems

When a customer asks for a new feature – they may or may not actually want/need the feature they ask for!

Often product managers make the mistake of assuming that the customers know exactly the feature they need. But this may not be a correct assumption in many instances.

What the customers do know – and they know this really well – are the problems they have that are unmet by your product or service. They not only know about these problems, but very often they know them far better than product managers or anyone else at your company.

What Does This Mean To Product Managers?

The next time a customer asks for a new feature – make a concerted effort to understand what problem(s) they have that they’re trying to solve by asking for this feature. Really, really understand the problem. In depth.

Then design a “feature” that solves this problem insanely well – far better than even the customer might have envisioned.

I'm your author, Michael Shrivathsan, an expert in product management with successful experience over two decades. I live in Silicon Valley, USA. For my day job, I'm the VP of Product Management at Accompa, we make the popular requirements management software used by PM teams and related teams.

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Filed Under: Product Management, Product Roadmap

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  • http://www.puristproductmanagement.blogspot.com PuristProductManagement

    Yes, this and Cindy’s posts are really important. For me its about questions structure. Instead of asking:
    What do you want?
    Product managers should ask:
    How could our product make your life easier?

    Getting to the heart of the problem, reduces the likelihood of product failure

  • michael_shrivathsan

    Great point, I agree.

    Similarly
    ——-
    Customer says: “Please add Feature X”
    PM asks: “Can you tell me more about why you need Feature X?”
    ——-

    This question by PM usually results in deeper insight (and more customer delight down the road) than just adding “Feature X” to the enhancement request list.

  • http://twitter.com/trevorrotzien Trevor Rotzien

    Absolutely, many feature requests are symptoms, not cures.

    I’d step even farther back than asking “how can our product make your work easier”. I’d ask “ideally, how would you perform this task? What data/process/workflow would minimize the pain?” This way you can identify gaps that:
    -Your product already fills, but the user doesn’t know it;
    -Your product could fill with an enhancement;
    -Is beyond the scope of your business, but the knowledge of the gap, conveyed by you to the user’s company, may result in a new work-around or solution that enhances the value of your product within the workflow (or at least win you additional credibility as “getting” their business)

  • michael_shrivathsan

    Trevor – Perfect! I love your question:
    “Ideally, how would you perform this task? What data/process/workflow would minimize the pain?”

  • http://twitter.com/trevorrotzien Trevor Rotzien

    Something I learned the hard way. :-)

    Expressed more generally, it’s insufficient to understand the specific problem the user is trying to solve; you need to understand the context in which the problem resides to be able to provide a solution that has the most significant positive impact.

    This is not a simply a conceptual approach – it’s competitive advantage.

  • http://www.accompa.com michael_shrivathsan

    Trevor – Excellent point on competitive advantage.

    One of the best companies I’ve ever worked for – they were far better at this than their competitors, and it was a HUGE competitive advantage for them. They consistently posted 35-40% NET margins – which no one in their space came even close to!