Where technophiles are in control of a company, their goal
is the perfection of their product – to increase the performance and efficiency
of the product, to add more features and functions, and otherwise to make the
product “better” by an abstract technical standard. But a far more important question is whether
the market agrees with their ideas about what makes a product more desirable.
Sometimes, the answer is “yes.” When a significant market segment sees gas
prices as burdensome and is frustrated by how slowly web pages load, there is
sufficient demand for a more fuel-efficient engine and a faster internet
connection and the firm that delivers this quality will attract customers. But the market does not have an unlimited
appetite for efficiency improvements – where the majority of the market is
satisfied with their gas mileage and internet speed, there is no appeal for a
product that is “better” than the competition in these regards.
And this is where many firms disconnect from the market –
they attempt to perfect their product in ways that the market does not value,
or continue to pursue a quality that the market no longer values. Internet access is a fitting example: two
decades ago it was a serious concern, but today most product offerings offer
sufficient bandwidth for the consume needs, yet firms continue to advertise
their network speed to a market that doesn’t feel the need for more than they
have.
This is easier to witness for goods than for services
because the capabilities are evident in the object, but firms who produce a
service also suffer from the same issues.
Consider the way in which hotels are constantly adding additional
services for guests, and the way that guests are beginning to resent paying fees
for services they do not use (the “resort fee” for a workout room and a pool
that the guest never visits). In this
regard, it is easier to measure customer discontent with an
overly-sophisticated product that leads them to pay for capabilities they do
not value when the product is a service, but it can also be seen in goods where
customers reject the “high end” model that offers unattractive qualities for an
additional cost.
This is to say that perfection of product is only meaningful
to the market when it contributes to perfection of experience. Where any product is enhanced in ways the customer
does not value, that enhancement is an unnecessary cost and an undesirable
price premium to a customer who seems no benefit in the additional
sophistication.
Unfortunately, the technophiles seldom see this. They pursue perfection of object regardless
of whether it is what the market desires, and often pointedly ignore perfection
of experience until it becomes a significant detriment to their revenues. When customers switch to a simpler and less
expensive alternative, it hits the providers of complex and expensive ones in
the pocketbook. Maybe they recognize
this in time, or maybe they continue to pursue perfection of product and
attempt to “educate” the customer as to why they ought to pay more – though most
do this very poorly, failing to connect feature to benefit at all.
This may well be the reason that technology firms are so
short-lived. During the brief moment in
time where the goals they are pursuing happen to coincide with the desires of
the customer, they experience commercial success. But this is entirely by coincidence, and when
the market changes, the firm clings to the objectives that led to its temporary
success, ignoring the signs that its interests are out of joint with those of
the market.
The solution to this problem is simply one of customer
awareness: considering the problem the customer is trying to solve (rather than
the solution the firm provides) and asking more insightful questions to
recognize not only that “X is important,” but the degree to which having “X”
contributes meaningfully to the customer experience – and to stop pursuing it
beyond that point.
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