Sprint 17 :: Think as a customer
Apart from all the frameworks, methodologies, team leading and so on, one of the main reasons product people exist is to have someone that has the ability to think and see things as someone else.
For this, and before trying to think like a customer, we need to do user discovery and understand who our customers are and what do they love or hate about us!
Knowing the current state of our relationship with customers (when managing products already on the market) is absolutely essential.
Recently, it is common to see in the most famous digital products, consumer satisfaction analysis metrics such as NPS (Net Promoter Score) through questions such as "Would you recommend this application to a friend?" or "Rate this app from 1-10". This will allow us to understand our current relationship with our customers and start thinking as a customer.
As a Product person it’s really easy to get lost in requirements and user stories and all the bureaucratic work we do day by day and with that lose sight of one of the main aspects of our jobs. Apart from data and product insight, it’s important that as a Product Manager you are able to put yourself in other people's shoes and see what they think about that brand and shiny new feature that you are about to start working on.
As a user, would you gain anything from that feature?
As a user, is it in the correct place?
As a user, do you want it? Why?
These are the questions I try to ask myself every single time. It’s rather hard to ask and answer them when you are talking about a different country, different culture and different people than what you are used to, so before I ask those questions I tend to devote a couple of hours (most times off-work) to know more about that culture, I normally go around reddit (my username is in so many countries now…) I google informations about cultures like:
What’s the medium income
What’s the minimum income
What's their cost of living?
How do they live?
What are the biggest events in the country
What happened in the country over the last few years
Where do they go to vacations
What do they eat
Country Memes (This one is very important!)
And a lot more information, mainly to be able to try and think a bit like they do, of course, this is never easy, but it’s a basic requirement for almost all individuals working in Product.
If as a product manager / owner you are not empathetic enough to be able to do this, then you must find other ways to be able to feel and to see as another culture would. It is by far one of the most difficult things you will have to do in Product, as it’s one of the little things that can hardly be taught and that comes from years of practice.
With that being said, go, and learn more about other people's culture, their whys and hows, learn their pains and happinesses, and become a truthfully knowledgeable Product Person!
And remember, we do this for them!
The Product Land ⛰️
Wanna know more? Stay tuned and subscribe for the next sprints! ☟
And also.. get in touch with us if you want to! 🌐