If you are someone who is speaking to the customers and understanding their requirements then, everything about the customer becomes or needs to be “Your Business”. This would include their feelings, emotions, and understanding of what every customer needs or desires to want.
In almost all cases, what a customer wants is in contrast with what they would need. You may have noticed that most of the time they would try to tell you everything they know and expect you to understand. Understanding the requirements of the customers is always key in successful implementation. I am not suggesting it to be a wrong thing. Even I might be the same when explaining my needs and ideas.
To react to the above situation, it is critically important to understand the customer and their requirements of what thoughts swing inside the mind of a customer.
1. Inputs from different sources for understanding customer
Let us face it when we get a requirement a need or an idea, we want to validate it with our friends and team members. The result of it in most cases is we get a lot more inputs and modification suggestions from them. We then sit down to arrange them and prioritize them. The customer might have gone through the same process and now has many things to organize which could become overwhelming sometimes.
2. Not sure or confident on what level we can understand them
A few times I have noticed that the customer tries too hard to explain to us their requirements in the simplest ways. Several times they might come up with queries like “Are you with me?” or “Do I make sense?” And, if such queries occur too many times then that’s a clear sign of them being not very confident of us in understanding the requirements of customer. Sometimes, In the process of making things too simple, they may step down or may not show us their final vision clearly.
3. Not sure of the platform capabilities
In my career of working with customers on application development and the ServiceNow platform, I have encountered many customers who have great knowledge of the business process but minimal knowledge of the platform. They keep validating with us on whether the platform can do this or that. This results in breaking the flow of explanation and the requirement may not be understood by us.
When we understand the customer’s current position or view. We are not complaining and looking out for solutions instead.
Orison Swett Marden states the golden rule for any business “Put yourself in your customer’s place”
How do we deal with understanding customer?
These are my recommendations and coming from how we have dealt with the situation
1. Listen
You must have heard this several times but this is the key. Listen to the other person, everything they have to say. In my personal experience, I prefer not interrupting the customer while explaining the requirement even when I have questions. This helps in the flow of explanation in the right direction and better understanding of customer and his/her requirement.
The most important thing at this point in time is to note down any questions quickly on a piece of paper or notepad and ask when you get a chance at the end or a customer asks “Any questions so far?” or any other form of it. The idea is to not interrupt and wait for the correct time. This helps you to get a flow understanding and later on fill in the gaps with the answers to the questions.
2. Use Pen and Paper
We in IT sometimes are great at speed typing on a notepad of any given system. When the customer explains we get busy typing out notes on our systems. In my personal experience, even today, PEN and PAPER do a better job. The biggest advantage of it is that you can write and draw simultaneously. Moreover, paper is a canvas to opportunely scribble anything, anywhere without any wastage of time in entering “Space” and “Enter” keyboard bars.
Brings back the child in me. Somehow I became more active and focused. Do you even feel the same as me?
This will again help in understanding customer and their requirement.
3. Organize and Draw
The customer might be unorganized but we need to spend the very next 15 minutes after the meeting organizing everything we heard and understood. The MOMs or as we know the Minutes of the meeting are important to understand the next steps, action items, and decisions but they may not talk about the requirements It is important to do the same for the requirement and break it down and share the understanding with the customer. We at ZeTechno do this and it helps us not just stay in the right direction but increase the customer confidence in us.
4. Get back with questions
When you organize and draw flow diagrams on a piece of paper or system, you will identify the voids. A thorough research and putting a timer on it will help you find a standard solution to fill those voids. If you still struggle to find a solution then reach out to the customer. This process will help your customer understand that you have done your research and you both can save your time.
5. Showcase options and recommend
A requirement can have different solutions but only one of them is the best according to us. We need to find all possible solutions and showcase them to the customer because the customer deserves to know and evaluate all of them. This does not end here because if customers do not know what the best option for them is then our recommendation of the best way is the winner. If they agree with you then great otherwise if they differ from you they usually justify the WHY of it and we understand their point of view better. In either of the cases, we are the winner.
@ZeTechno above is something we follow on an everyday basis. #lifeAtZetechno
What are your thoughts on the above?
Are you able to connect? Any better thoughts? Let me know with the comments.
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Thank you!
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