I Like to Watch
Yes, I’m a noticer. I’m passionate about the little things. The details. The obvious. And I get hot and bothered about people who are hardwired in repeated behaviors to NOT see things and who become indifferent and myopic toward their customers.
So I like to watch, because in the words of that pre-eminent branding authority, Yogi Berra, “You can observe a lot by watching.” And amazingly often, the keys to success are staring us in the face, in the real ways customers use our products in their real lives. Meaning, we can learn infinitely more by watching our customers than by listening to them.
I watch while in line at Starbucks, Whole Foods, CVS and Marriott. There are thousands of touch-points or pain points to witness in those, hopefully, short minutes. And the question I always ask when I see a problem is - why can’t they see it and fix it? Well, you can’t train someone to be human. But you can train them to keep their eyes open.
In the late ‘80’s, a man named Scott Cook watched his wife paying bills at their kitchen table in the usual tedious fashion, said ‘there has to be a better way’ and was inspired to invent software called Quicken. How was it developed? By company reps spending five hours sitting behind customers, watching them use the program, looking for empathetic solutions along the way. When Quicken was released, the program was so intuitive, most people operated it without cracking open the instruction manual. What do you expect when your founder says: ”The software should be easy to use in a customer’s hands, not in my hands or an engineer’s.”
Then there was Sam Farber who watched his wife with arthritis struggle to grip kitchen utensils. Kitchen utensils universally came with thin, hard-to-grip handles because, well, because that’s the way they came. Thus, OXO was born, a utensil company devoted to ergonomically designed tools created to exceed a consumer's expectation for comfort. And that starts with wide grips.
Rubbermaid sent "observers" to nursing homes and asked how they could improve their walkers. The users scratched their heads. The walkers were fine the way they were. But like me, Rubbermaid likes to watch. So they observed the walkers in action. They saw a woman who had tied a bicycle basket onto her walker with shoestrings. They saw a man attach a cell phone holder with duct tape. They saw a walker with a cup-holder jerry-rigged onto it. And so Rubbermaid responded. They designed a flexible mesh pouch for their new walkers so users could carry things around, and that product of observation helped them leap beyond the competition.
The guru of retail consulting Paco Underhill has been scientifically watching shoppers for years. Time and time again when his breakthrough conclusions are applied to retail environments there have been positive changes in sales.
So, I like to watch. “I don't pretend to be an intellectual or a philosopher. I just look” said Josef Koudelka. Me too Joe. More than ever, brands better keep their eyes glued to the customer in order to see the future.
