How to Understand Customer Needs Beyond Csat

Surveys can serve an important purpose. We should use them to fill holes in our understanding of the customer experience or build better models with the customer data we have. As surveys tell you what customers explicitly choose to share, you should not be using them to measure the experience. Surveys are also inherently reactive, surface level, and increasingly ignored by customers who are overwhelmed by feedback requests. This is fact. There’s a different way. Some CX leaders understand that the most critical insights come from sources customers don’t even realize they’re providing from the “exhaust” of every day life with your brand. Real-time digital behavior, social listening, conversational analytics, and predictive modeling deliver insights that surveys alone never will. Voice and sentiment analytics, for example, go beyond simply reading customer comments. They reveal how customers genuinely feel by analyzing tone, frustration, or intent embedded within interactions. Behavioral analytics, meanwhile, uncover friction points by tracking real customer actions across websites or apps, highlighting issues users might never explicitly complain about. Predictive analytics are also becoming essential for modern CX strategies. They anticipate customer needs, allowing businesses to proactively address potential churn, rather than merely reacting after the fact. The capability can also help you maximize revenue in the experiences you are delivering (a use case not discussed often enough). The most forward-looking CX teams today are blending traditional feedback with these deeper, proactive techniques, creating a comprehensive view of their customers. If you’re just beginning to move beyond a survey-only approach, prioritizing these more advanced methods will help ensure your insights are not only deeper but actionable in real time. Surveys aren’t dead (much to my chagrin), but relying solely on them means leaving crucial insights behind. While many enterprises have moved beyond surveys, the majority are still overly reliant on them. And when you get to mid-market or small businesses? The survey slapping gets exponentially worse. Now is the time to start looking beyond the questionnaire and your Likert scales. The email survey is slowly becoming digital dust. And the capabilities to get you there are readily available. How are you evolving your customer listening strategy beyond traditional surveys? #customerexperience #cxstrategy #customerinsights #surveys

While it can be easily believed that customers are the ultimate experts about their own needs, there are ways to gain insights and knowledge that customers may not be aware of or able to articulate directly. While customers are the ultimate source of truth about their needs, product managers can complement this knowledge by employing a combination of research, data analysis, and empathetic understanding to gain a more comprehensive understanding of customer needs and expectations. The goal is not to know more than customers but to use various tools and methods to gain insights that can lead to building better products and delivering exceptional user experiences. ➡️ User Research: Conducting thorough user research, such as interviews, surveys, and observational studies, can reveal underlying needs and pain points that customers may not have fully recognized or articulated. By learning from many users, we gain holistic insights and deeper insights into their motivations and behaviors. ➡️ Data Analysis: Analyzing user data, including behavioral data and usage patterns, can provide valuable insights into customer preferences and pain points. By identifying trends and patterns in the data, product managers can make informed decisions about what features or improvements are most likely to address customer needs effectively. ➡️ Contextual Inquiry: Observing customers in their real-life environment while using the product can uncover valuable insights into their needs and challenges. Contextual inquiry helps product managers understand the context in which customers use the product and how it fits into their daily lives. ➡️ Competitor Analysis: By studying competitors and their products, product managers can identify gaps in the market and potential unmet needs that customers may not even be aware of. Understanding what competitors offer can inspire product improvements and innovation. ➡️ Surfacing Implicit Needs: Sometimes, customers may not be able to express their needs explicitly, but through careful analysis and empathetic understanding, product managers can infer these implicit needs. This requires the ability to interpret feedback, observe behaviors, and understand the context in which customers use the product. ➡️ Iterative Prototyping and Testing: Continuously iterating and testing product prototypes with users allows product managers to gather feedback and refine the product based on real-world usage. Through this iterative process, product managers can uncover deeper customer needs and iteratively improve the product to meet those needs effectively. ➡️ Expertise in the Domain: Product managers, industry thought leaders, academic researchers, and others with deep domain knowledge and expertise can anticipate customer needs based on industry trends, best practices, and a comprehensive understanding of the market. #productinnovation #discovery #productmanagement #productleadership

Your Product Managers are talking to customers. So why isn’t your product getting better? A few years ago, I was on a team where our boss had a rule: 🗣️ “Everyone must talk to at least one customer each week.” So we did. Calls were scheduled. Conversations happened. Boxes were checked. But nothing changed. No real insights. No real impact. Because talking to customers isn’t the goal. Learning the right things is. When discovery lacks purpose, it leads to wasted effort, misaligned strategy, and poor business decisions: ❌ Features get built that no one actually needs. ❌ Roadmaps get shaped by the loudest voices, not the right customers. ❌ Teams collect insights… but fail to act on them. How Do You Fix It? ✅ Talk to the Right People Not every customer insight is useful. Prioritize: -> Decision-makers AND end-users – You need both perspectives. -> Customers who represent your core market – Not just the loudest complainers. -> Direct conversations – Avoid proxy insights that create blind spots. 👉 Actionable Step: Before each interview, ask: “Is this customer representative of the next 100 we want to win?” If not, rethink who you’re talking to. ✅ Ask the Right Questions A great question challenges assumptions. A bad one reinforces them. -> Stop asking: “Would you use this?” -> Start asking: “How do you solve this today?” -> Show AI prototypes and iterate in real-time – Faster than long discovery cycles. -> If shipping something is faster than researching it—just build it. 👉 Actionable Step: Replace one of your upcoming interview questions with: “What workarounds have you created to solve this problem?” This reveals real pain points. ✅ Don’t Let Insights Die in a Doc Discovery isn’t about collecting insights. It’s about acting on them. -> Validate across multiple customers before making decisions. -> Share findings with your team—don’t keep them locked in Notion. -> Close the loop—show customers how their feedback shaped the product. 👉 Actionable Step: Every two weeks, review customer insights with your team to decipher key patterns and identify what changes should be applied. If there’s no clear action, you’re just collecting data—not driving change. Final Thought Great discovery doesn’t just inform product decisions—it shapes business strategy. Done right, it helps teams build what matters, align with real customer needs, and drive meaningful outcomes. 👉 Be honest—are your customer conversations actually making a difference? If not, what’s missing? -- 👋 I'm Ron Yang, a product leader and advisor. Follow me for insights on product leadership + strategy.

We surveyed 1,244 product teams over the last 6 months and uncovered a reality that blew our minds: While all product teams are trying to create products that better satisfy customer needs, over 80% of product teams do not agree on what a customer "need" even is! Teams define "needs" as exciters and delight-ers, pains and gains, specifications and requirements, features, value drivers, wants and benefits, wishes, aspirations... ...and the list goes on, as if any of these inputs will correctly inform the innovation process. Here's the problem: THEY DON'T! Just like any process, only precise inputs lead to a great result. So what is the right input? We know that people buy products and services to get a "job" done. So, let's start by defining customer "needs" as the metrics customers use to measure success when getting a job done. If we know how customers measure success, we can create solutions that help them get their jobs done better--and win in the marketplace. These metrics, which we call the customer's desired outcomes, are tied to the customer's job-to-be-done and are unique in many ways. They are: - measurable and controllable, - actionable, - unambiguous, - solution independent and, - stable over time. When listening to music, for example, a music enthusiast may want to: “minimize the time it takes to get the songs in the desired order for listening.” This is one of many outcomes associated with the job of listening to music. Using these customer inputs as customer need statements, you're able to: 1. Understand how your customer measures success. 2. Measure how well your solutions get the job done. 3. Give your team clear instructions on how to improve your solutions. Watch your team transform when they're aligned with the metrics your customers use to measure success. #CustomerNeeds #InnovationProcess

Misunderstanding Customer Needs = Innovation Failure Most innovation efforts fail because companies don’t truly understand what their customers want. They optimize existing products, chase trends, and build features based on gut instinct—turning innovation into a frustrating, costly guessing game. But it doesn’t have to be that way. This past Wednesday, I had the fun privilege of sharing "Lean JTBD"—how to unlock the secret of making products customers love—with 39 entrepreneurs and business leaders in a TIGER 🐯 Talk at Innovate New Albany. Big thanks to Neil Collins for hosting! Three takeaways: 1️⃣ People don’t buy products and services; they hire them to get their jobs done. 2️⃣ Customers CAN tell us what they want—if you ask the right questions. 3️⃣ If you don’t understand the “job” your customers are hiring your product/service to do, and where their needs remain unmet, then you’re inevitably missing the mark. And that's a completely avoidable mistake. Don’t ask customers what features they want; ask what they need to accomplish. That’s where true innovation starts; not with a "good idea." If you want to make innovation a repeatable business process, it has to start with understanding customer needs. The fastest way to innovate with confidence? Identify your target customers’ important unmet needs—before building anything. This eliminates guesswork and ensures strong market fit—at concept creation. Want to put these insights into action? I'm creating a free PDF: "The Lean JTBD Playbook"—a three-step guide to help you: ✔️ Choose the right growth strategy for product differentiation ✔️ Redefine your market for innovation ✔️ Obtain customer insights that matter Coming soon! Drop a comment or DM me with 'PLAYBOOK' and I’ll send it your way once it’s ready. #Jobstobedone #Innovation #ProductStrategy #differentiation #CustomerNeeds

Customer feedback isn't just about what they say—it’s about the emotions they don’t express. 👇 In customer interactions, it’s not just the spoken feedback that matters. Often, unspoken signals—such as body language, hesitation, or tone—reveal deeper insights about their experience. Listening beyond the words is critical for improving customer experience. A customer might say they're satisfied, but their tone, lack of enthusiasm, or quick responses might suggest otherwise. By learning to pick up on these subtle cues, businesses can uncover hidden pain points, anticipate needs, and deliver personalized solutions. This deeper understanding builds trust and loyalty, setting your brand apart in a competitive market. The best customer experiences come from hearing what isn’t said. Master that, and you’ll master customer loyalty. If you found this post helpful, repost it with your network. #companyculutre #communication #customerexperience #marketing

I believe businesses exists long term to deliver customer value. Not to build a perfect process or a clean CRM. While those does help, Let's focus on the things that really matters- deliver value to your customers. And if you never measure it, you never know if you improved. The easiest step is to try Theysaid CPV, adding a CPV question besides your normal NPS or CSAT question. As a mad woman who is obsessed with customer value, sharing my understanding of 5 levels of measuring customer value. Level 1 : Usage metrics. ✅ Product usage ✅ Time in App ✅ Seats bought vs Used level 2: Standard customer metrics ✅ Time to value ✅ Health Scores ✅ Ticket Resolution ✅ CSAT ✅ NPS Level 3: Measure value delivered ✅ TheySaid CPV (Customer Perceived Value) ✅ Each department records customers’ desired problems to be solved ✅ Customer advisory board program ✅ Customer interview program (including win / loss analysis) Level 4: Embedded ✅ Metrics for customer-value delivered is a company goal and owned by a C-Level Executive ✅ Customer-value delivered is measured throughout their lifecycle via a cross-departmental program (for example TheySaid Pulse Program) ✅ Empower team members to take action using customer data ✅ Real time actions on customer problems Level 5: Customer-led growth ✅ The CEO builds the entire company on delivering customer value  ✅ Customers receive consistent experiences throughout their journey, not hit or miss depending on departments ✅ Ideal Customer Profiles come from customers that get the most value Marketing content is driven by customer needs ✅ Potential customers are qualified with use cases that will deliver the most value ✅ Product roadmap driven by quantified customer requests #customervalue #CPV #CustomerPerceivedValue #nps #netpromoterscore #csat