Customer Focused Innovation

Last week I made a first-time purchase. I bought two domain names. Since this purchase, I've been thinking quite a bit about "identity." After all, this was the primary driver behind my purchase decision.

Identity, as defined by Wikipedia, is whatever makes something the same or different. Since this purchase, I've been thinking about identity as it relates to the customer experience.

The more we know about what makes our customers similar or different, the better we can serve them and create mutual value. Right?

But, oftentimes we approach our data analysis using organizational structures that are relevant and familiar to us, not them.

Does this distract us from learning the identity of our customers? After all, our customers don't organize themselves under these structures. Do they?

Instead, what if we analyzed customer insights according to the challenges that our customers face, or the problems they are trying to solve, or the aspects of our products that they use (or don't use).

If we understand the identity of our customers will that get us closer to Nirvana? What say you?

About the photo: Given the topic, I wanted to include a photo that reveals a big part of my identity, my family.