All of us talk about customer focus. Heck, I just spent the past few days talking about it 31 times, starting here.
But when you are talking about customer focus, make sure that you are talking about the customer’s true focus.
Let me explain.
Walking in the customer’s shoes is not a good fit
(See the alternate interpretation at the end of the post.)
Back in 2015, Scott Faucheux wrote a piece on what he called consumer focus. When talking about the voice of the consumer, Faucheux said this:
Many marketers (and most non-marketers), when asked to consider the VOC, will ask themselves, “What would I do if I were in that consumer’s shoes?”
From https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/wwcd-what-would-consumer-do-scott-faucheux/
Sounds reasonable, but Faucheux points out an inherent flaw in this approach.
[T]he perspective considered would be based on how I would respond if I were placed in that situation, which is still anchored in my own personal biography and is therefore subject to my own personal biases.
From https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/wwcd-what-would-consumer-do-scott-faucheux/
But what is the customer saying?
But even if you understand the true voice of the customer, you might go in the wrong direction. Bill McDonald describes what happens when you take VOC as gospel:
The basic concept behind “voice of the customer” calls for you to sell to his or her stated needs. After all, your customers (clients/prospects) know their situation and what they need. Right?
From https://pleinairestrategies.com/2017/07/3-reasons-to-ignore-voice-of-customer/
But this assumes that the customer knows what they need. Often they may not know what they truly need.
To stand out from the crowd, you need a different approach. You need a way to lay the groundwork for change by telling prospects something they don’t already know about their status quo situation.
From https://pleinairestrategies.com/2017/07/3-reasons-to-ignore-voice-of-customer/
I won’t go as far as McDonald and say that VOC should be ignored. Instead, VOC should be augmented by probing questions—and responses—that go beyond “we need a better mousetrap” surface solutions.
Maybe your customer needs a hungry cat.
“Walking in My Shoes” (Not Taylor’s version)
As for me, when I hear the phrase “walking in my shoes,” I don’t think about shoes. I think about a song.
Bredemarket 
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