Balancing Innovation & Customer Needs

When you innovate, does it align with customer needs? Learn why technical growth needs to be balanced with customer needs.

Most companies place a high value on creating a great customer experience. But, at the same time, there’s a lot of pressure to keep up with the latest technological trends, channels, etc. How can we balance technical innovation with the needs of our customers?

There’s a fine line between innovating to better meet customer needs and innovating for innovation’s sake. So let’s talk about how we can pull off that balancing act and make innovations that enhance the customer experience.

Innovation vs. Customers’ Needs?

At first glance, innovation is the servant of customer experience; hasn’t the digital revolution made it easier for us to interact with and understand our customers?

Unfortunately, in some cases the proliferation of channels and touchpoints has simply obscured what we can do to stay customer-focused. And yet, most businesses firmly believe that “our customers come first”.

So, we should all ask ourselves if our vision matches reality. Why? Well, consider these statistics:

• 45% of customers switch brands due to poor customer service. ^[1]
• 32% will leave a brand because of inconsistent CX. ^[2]
• A 20% increase in customer satisfaction can increase cross-sell rates, wallet share, and customer engagement.^[3]
• 56% of consumers intend to become repeat buyers after a personalized experience.^[4]

As you can see, there’s not a lot of room for error in the current market. But just where does innovation fit into all this?

Making Innovation Work for Customer Needs

When it comes to innovation, we get pressure from all sides. We want to keep up with our industry and our competitors. We may be excited about the new possibilities ourselves. And our customers may be clamoring for various improvements.

Before we innovate, we need to be sure we really understand:

1. What our customers want.
2. What they need.
3. How innovation will impact their experience.

In short, we need to avoid impulsive reactions and stay human-focused. Instead of asking “Where can we use this shiny new technology?” ask “Will this innovation help solve a problem for our customers?”.

Even if you’re innovating in an area that doesn’t directly impact the immediate customer experience (e.g. a sales enablement platform or a CRM tool), it’s good to stop and think about the potential impact – good or bad – on your CX.

Stay Human Centered to Stay Balanced

Finding the balance between innovating and serving our customer’s interests can admittedly be hard. This is where design thinking and human-centered processes can really help us understand the situation. If you need some expert assistance in these areas, set up a free consultation with us and we’ll be happy to help you.

Sources:

1. SAP Emarsys: 32 Customer Loyalty Statistics Your Business Needs to Know in 2025
2. PwC: Customer Loyalty Survey 2022
3. McKinsey: Experience-led growth: A new way to create value
4. Segment: State of Personalization Report 2023