To move toward an objective, that is not done in a single action. Instead, it requires a progression of steps. Take consumers preparing a meal for home consumption. While you might employ a food delivery service for that purpose, the steps of selecting the recipe, purchasing the groceries, cooking the meal, and washing the utensils still happen. They are just automated.
Toward any customer objective, there is a set of universal steps that customers move through. That progression of steps must not necessarily be linear. Most often, there is a back and forth. Here is the list of the universal steps:
- Plan: Customers do some planning and defining upfront to proceed
- Locate: Customers gather certain inputs and tools to do the job.
- Prepare: Customers prepare those inputs as well as their environment.
- Confirm: Customers make certain verifications to ensure success.
- Execute: Customers execute the core action.
- Monitor: Customers verify and track their execution to ensure success.
- Modify: Customers make updates and adjustments toward success.
- Conclude: Customers finish up and review.
Use these steps as a template throughout your conversations with customers. To uncover these steps, ask customers what else they must accomplish immediately before, while, and immediately after executing the core action, e.g., listening to music, cooking the meal, running the test (QA). Write out each step into a single statement using this formula: [customers] + [verb] + [object of the verb] + [contextual clarifier (optional)]. Confirm each statement with customers. Ensure that the collection of steps is accurate for all customer situations, regardless of the solution(s) customers employ to achieve their objective. Most probably, the list will be 8-16 steps long—customers might move through two or more steps to plan, locate, prepare, …
You are starting to fill in the details of your market. We understand the customer objective and the steps customers take toward there. Let’s add further context by uncovering customer needs.