In the last post, I have introduced the four steps enabling us to move from creative thinking to value creation. ​

After having decided the customer we want to serve and the problem we want to solve we face the ultimate creative challenge.

‘’We need to become able to see opportunities beyond the customer problem or pain.’’

Let me say that we, as humans, are quite good at intuition. Many of us naturally perceive (feel) when something can be better or improved. Think for example how many times, as a customer, you expected a better service.

The difficult part comes just after that. After having acknowledged the pain, we need to come up with suggestions.

‘’Anyone can complain; only a few customers can provide valuable suggestions on how to improve a product or service.’’

As a marketer, you need to encourage your current or future customers to provide you with suggestions instead of complaints. Here is the opportunity of inviting your customers in the creation of your product.

While I agree that it’s not the job of the customer telling us what they want, I believe that we can provide the right opportunity/circumstances for them to do so.

''We can invite customers in a conversation about their experience when using our product.''

Here is were most of us get it wrong. As we are naturally biased towards our product, we tend to ignore negative feedback, or in most cases, we weight positive feedback much more than the negative.

In so doing, not only we lose the opportunity to engage in an honest conversation with the customer, but also the opportunity to move this conversation towards the next level, helping our customers to articulate suggestions for improvements.

The brain is a lazy organ, and we need a reason to use it, mostly as customers (believing that everything is done for us - even the thinking.)

In this challenge of moving from customer pains towards opportunities for value creation, we need to engage and value our customers as a source of information.

While possibilities for value creation are there in front of us, intuition alone is not enough to frame them correctly. We need to move towards the next step, letting the customer being part of the value equation.