Turning Customer Insights and Collaboration into Winning Ideas

The problem is never how to get new, innovative thoughts into your mind, but how to get the old ones out.

- Dee Hock

Looking for winning ideas for your small business? From customer collaboration? Absolutely. One of the things customers do quite well understanding their peers’ needs.

To quote Steve Jobs:

It can be really hard to design products by focus groups.

A lot of times, people don’t know what they want until you show it to them.

This is certainly true in some instances, as it can be rewarding for brands to give their customers things they didn’t know they needed before they even ask ( the iPod is a perfect example).

But there is certainly a flip side to this, however. Research says customers DO know what they want in many situations. In fact, a study from the Institute of Management Sciences paints a very interesting picture of just how important customer input is in the success of many businesses.

The crucial conclusions of the study were as follows:

1. In a study of 1,193 commercially successful innovations across nine industries, 737 (60%) came from customers (i.e., customers can have very innovative ideas).