User Driven Product Development… The New Business Model

While recently researching and looking for new ways to improve my current business and possibly start another, I recently began reading about a new phenomenon: User Driven Product Development.  Gone are the days of the old Research and Development models which were focus group and out sourced research based.  Welcome the new days, and it’s quite a novel idea; it’s simplicity is the key.  (Isn’t that the case with most great ideas?  It’s grounded in simplicity and it’s self propelling.)

The great idea is to let your customers decide what you sell.  Not only do they decide what you sell, they help design it.  It eliminates the agnst ridden launch of a new idea or product, wondering if you the customer will appreciate what you’ve done for them.  The nail biting as you hope the consumer looks favorably upon your invention.  Those fears are made obsolete when you take the guess work out of the equation.  If the person you’re targeting is the one telling you what they want and what they are willing to buy, then you’ve just avoided a lot of heart burn and many sleepless nights.

The question is, how do you incorporate this strategy into your current work?  It’s more than the old focus group, where the mom’s and teachers gather around to tell you the toys they need to develop healthy minds.  It’s more than that.  You cannot simply get their input, they have to be a part of the selling model.  Many companies are using User Driven Product Development in conjunction with User Driven Marketplaces.  What a glorious day when the person buying it is the one designing it, the one putting it on the market and then buying it.  You need not lose sleep at a product launch if all the guess work is gone.

It’s so simple it doesn’t require paragraphs of explanation.

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The Secret of Branding and Customer Service; the Whopper Freak Out Video

While watching American Idol recently, I saw a commercial for Burger King.  If you haven’t seen this Whooper Freak Out Video, click the name and watch.  It’s quite funny and insightful.  The reactions of the customers are varied but the center on one central theme:  the product they’d come to know and love, the product that WAS Burger King to them was gone.  And with the disappearance of this item, their impression of the company was changed as well.

The question is, what in your current business is the Whopper?  What would you take away that if you did, the customer would simply not stand for it?  What would get these reactions from your customers? 

The challenge is… Can you make exceptional customer service your Whopper?  Can you make exceptional customer service such a focus that if one day it were gone, the customer would not stand for it.  If you can, you’ll grow your business like never before.

Filed under: Customer Service, Exceptional Customer Service, Inspiration, Life, Management Lesson, Management Training, Motivation, News, Whopper Freak Out Video