Are you one of those people that a company would choose to call to get feedback about their products or services?
Do you have the right characteristics? In business, we call it the voice of the customer. And it turns out, there are certain types of people who are better at this than others.
The term “emergent customer” was coined by Donna Hoffman, a researcher from the University of California where she identified an emergent customer as a type of customer that seems to be better at giving feedback than your everyday customer.
Emergent customers have the ability to wrap their heads around certain new ideas. They look at things in a way that allows them to give more detailed and more interesting feedback than people who are so-called non-emergent customers. They’re better at imagining how a concept would address some latent unmet need.
A method of creativity you can learn is called Systematic Inventive Thinking or SIT. It’s based on five patterns that have been used by mankind for thousands of years, and which are still embedded into the products and services you see around you every day. By learning this method, you’re going to open your mind to more innovative ideas you see day in day out.
To hear more on the characteristics of an emergent customer, listen to the full podcast episode here: Episode 028: Why Some People See Creative Ideas More Clearly Than Others.