How to Tell a Customer What They Need

1st July 2008, 05:47 am

In my line of engineering, it is common for the customer to not know what they need to solve a particular problem they are having. They know they have a problem because something has broken, or they are not getting the performance they require. They also realize they do not have the expertise to solve the problem. That is why they hire my firm.

There are typically three kinds of customers.

The customer knows the kind of solution they need, but they do not know how to implement that solution.
The customer knows they have a problem, and has no idea of the solution.
The customer thinks they know the solution, but are incorrect.

Number 3 is often the most difficult, because you have to convince them that the solution you offer is what they really need.

As with most things, there is a right way and a wrong way to tell a customer what they need.

The wrong way is to tell them you are the expert and you know what is best for them. Even though this may be true, you won’t help anything if you do not show the customer that you respect their position and are grateful they came to you for help.

The right way is to educate your customer. Sometimes you do this up front and give an educational presentation on how you would solve their problem. Other times you might have to educate them without letting them know you are educating them.

A current customer knows they have a problem, has tried some solutions, but has not obtained the performance they require. I have had a bit of trouble finding out exactly what their problem is. Part of this comes from the customer just showing what they did and saying they want us to make their solution better. After learning more about the problem, it turns out their solution may not be correct. At this point, I still need to obtain more information about the system before we can design a good solution.

After gaining some understanding of the problem, I am writing a plan of how we would ideally gather all necessary information, model the problem, and create a solution for their particular device. They may not want to pursue the entire list, since it may go out of scope of the current contract, but at least this will educate them and give them options of how they might want us to proceed. It also will tell them what they need.