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5 reasons why you shouldn't build what your customers tell you.

Francisco Moschetti

It’s easy to build what your customers ask for. You don’t ‘waste’ time researching, and you jump right into building exactly what your customer told you. At the end of the day, they are the ones using the tool right? they should know what they need.

Well, reality is always more complicated than that. After you build the exact solution your customer asked for, you still can’t get them to feel happy with the product. Not a lot of time goes by until you get another feature request from the same customer. And the cycle starts again.

The problem

This is a common pattern in product management, and it’s a mistake we all make. It feels nice to ‘help’ a customer, and gain their trust and confidence by building what they requested. But this is short term thinking that can end up hurting your relationship with this or other customers.

A customer solution is not a good solution for the following reasons

1. They don’t focus on outcomes.

The best example here is the classic story about “faster horses”. There is this famous quote that is attributed to Ford (but no one knows 100% if he said it) that goes: “If i had asked my customers what they wanted, they would have said a faster horse” It’s very common for customers to think on features and not outcomes. In this example, the outcome is traveling faster, but the setting conditions your customers to think in incremental solutions instead of alternative aproaches that solve the underlaying problem in a better way.

2. They don’t know what’s possible.

Your customers don’t know what options are available to solve a problem, and their suggestions are conditioned by what they are aware of.

3. Solutions Can Be Overly Specific to One Customer

A customer’s suggested solution might be highly tailored to their specific circumstances but not scalable or applicable to the rest of your customers. When you build specific solutions, you end up overcomplicating your product and increasing the cost of maintenance.

4. Customers Tend to Focus on Short-Term Problems

Customers often focus on their immediate needs or frustrations rather than considering long-term solutions or strategic improvements. The source of that frustration is often hidden and requires a different solution that the one suggested.

5. Customers Are Often Emotionally Attached to Existing Solutions

Customers are sometimes biased toward solutions they already use and may resist change, even when a better alternative exists.

So.. what should i do?

When a customer suggests a solution, it’s your sign to jump in and dig deep to understand what is the job the customer is trying to do with this solution. You should try to answer to following questions: