WHY PRODUCTS FAIL
Simply put: More products and services fail than succeed. This is why more business fail than succeed.
So learning about how to make products succeed should take a note of what *not* to do. Your business could depend on it.
LANGUAGE
Mom's used to talk more about "watching your language." At least mine did. Today we are more casual with language. Casual language can lead to casualties. Many products fail because of language. Everyone knows communication is key, right?
I recall early in my career a wireless phone initially failed because the phone was labeled with engineering terms like "mode" when it really should say "talk" or something intuitive to consumers. "Talk" about communication being "key" right :)
How do you get the right language? You've got to spend time talking to the right consumers. Product managers are likely to think they know customers and justify their own position "thinking they know the language" of their customer. Others talk to their kids or relatives and think they know what their "target audience" thinks. Ideally, you talk to the 20% that are buying the most of your product - many don't even talk to actual customers or even potential customes.
One key is "do *not* assume you know anything at the start" and you get "real potential customers" (not co-workers) to tell you what are the key "must have" drivers for product purchase in their language. Then you pollenate that language everywhere so everyone is on the same page including: Engineers, production, sales channels...everywhere. This is because the customers requirements for purchase must be in everyone's language so that customers understand why they must buy your product.
Language should be:
Stable
Intuitive
Simple
Natural
Targeting success = Value to Customer = Value to Business
CUSTOMER NEEDS
Getting the language right means first understanding what the needs are. All of the needs. Not just some needs you like. Qualitative research is the only way I know to do this. One on ones, ethnographic site visits, in-store shopping, and focus groups are what we use most.
Hiring a trained third party researcher is the way to go because they will speak and listen with trained, objective ears. You can't do this if you care about your product and/or your career. You are not objective.
You can not decide to be a "third party" because you are really smart. Furthermore, people will talk about competitors and other genuine issues with an outside consultant that they may not discuss with representative of the company. People like to be liked and do not want to be unpleasant towards producers of their purchases, especially if they are still in relationship with them.
Discover which needs delve into VALUE. These are "key drivers" to delight the customer. Use qualitative research to uncover the "why" behind the needs and delight. Usually it is not the "cup holder" but what is in the cup and the experience that really drives purchase.
Sometimes with electronics, success means finding out where customers are "over-served" and you can simplify a product offering by finding the key needs that the customer really wants to pay for.
Products may get complex because of engineering driven product development which has complicated, creaping featurism products that you can often make simpler with fewer materials- even improving your bottom line via cost savings and higher prices paid for better solutions.
CUSTOMER TARGETING & CUSTOMER ID - who is the customer?
Are you designing for the correct customer or for your engineers. Often technical folks dominate product development because they have the most "technical knowledge." It is almost always the case that the engineers assume customers get the "real technical issue" when in fact customers may not even know the name of the right product for them. For example, the XlW 5000C may mean "top color printer" to engineers and the target consumer is swimming in alpha bet soup. How sophisticated is your customer:
What do they read?
What are their core needs?
Which core needs line up with your product?
The best selling "hit" products often align with "pride in purchase," the "experience or process of purchasing" and "coolness" that have nothing to do with the engineering department. The exception can be when engineers can simplify and identify the key drivers, and design for these same drivers of purchase.
Age, income, segmentation schemes and retailer outlet shopped are interesting only if you can reach the targets you find. Look for groups where you could buy a giant list of them. Identifying "blue bloods" or "rich" as your target is too general. Spend time with customers and identify unique characteristics across multiple segments.
What are the user-centered values that you can leverage and make product trade offs for? Can you test prototypes and get at customer values at the same time? (Answer=Yes!).
If you do not know your customer's values you need this researched. You have to get to the user in their environment. You may able to learn more from a half dozen user visits about their values than you would ever learn from engineer brainstorms inside your cubilcal village. Do you really need an excuse to get out of the office better than this? The pictures on their walls and books on the shelves of customers can be as telling as what they say.
The values are attached to the product. Understand the values and beliefs too. Let the customer buy what they do and "do what they do" with the product in front of you and ask "why"?
Validate it quantiatively. You may have found that one arm unicyclists all want your product...is that a profitable target? Do some market testing. Are real potential customers willing to pay more than you are charging? Price, place, promotions and product should all be quantitatively tested.
MUST FIND OUT:
Who is buying the most?
Who is willing to pay the most?
Who is readily identifiable?
What intimate knowlege of their language and communication style is key to drive purchase of YOUR PRODUCT.
Often managers strategies are too simple. On the top level, lots of people are buying sports cars. So let's build a sports car too! Yet the dream car bought NEW by the target market at a profitable price is likely not your "newly introduced" model. Just think how long it took Hyundai to get to where they are today. Originally they were competing with "Yugos" as "Cars." Only recently are they in the legitimate sports car or luxury car segments in the mind of new car buyers (not used car buyers or engineers).
Quick List of Ways to Fail in Product Development
1) Go to market too fast (the we don't have enough time problem)
2) Pick the personal favorites of company mangers (colors, features, styles)
3) Go too cheap- design for lower cost and not customer needs
4) Assume you know how product is used - (Did they really buy the Corvette for commuting? Are Coach bags really to hold hair brushes and lipstick?)
5) Assume customer won't miss a key feature
6) In production of the product short cut away from aesthic feature or ergonomic feature (product doesn't fit, feel or look right)
7) No emotional appeal. Why would someone "trust" your product or have "pride" in the purchase of your product. Emotional appeals should be researched after you've got an understanding of the above CUSTOMER NEEDS AND CUSTOMER VALUES. Communication on a emotional connection level will happen only once you undestand who your customer is.
TECHNIQUES FOR RESEARCHING PRODUCT DEVELOPMENT
Outcome Driven Innovation, Qualitfy Function Deployment, Conjoint Analysis, KANO, Voice of the Customer, User Experience, Ethnographic Site Visits all can give you insights as to how to provide the best bet products to the market. Using prototyping and testing things early in the process can save time and keep you from launching a "never will succeed" product to market.
Best approaches mean you:
Identify all customer needs --to find the top ones.
Identify unifying language for key customer needs for all stakeholders teams and customers and sales and production.
Develop products with features to meet the top purchase drivers.
Keep true to CUSTOMER product key drivers in production and marketing.
Test market.
Validate concepts with actual customers (not staff).
Gather intial feed back from first customers and incorporate feedback into rev to improve launch and re-purchase and word of mouth.
Validate price and volumetrics in market place before significant investment.