Customer Need is a fundamental concept in the Jobs to be Done (JTBD) framework that defines the specific metrics customers use to evaluate how successfully they can execute their job-to-be-done. Understanding customer needs with precision is essential for portfolio companies to develop products that create value, accelerate growth, and generate superior equity returns.

Definition and Importance

In the JTBD framework, a customer need is defined as a metric that customers use to judge how quickly and accurately they can execute a step in their job-to-be-done. Each need consists of two components:

1. An action: What the customer must do (e.g., determine, identify, reduce, ensure)
2. A variable: What information or condition must be known or established (e.g., optimal sequence, available time, potential delays)

This precise definition provides a structured way to understand what customers are trying to accomplish, independent of any specific solution, product, or technology.

Understanding customer needs is critical because:

1. Research shows that 95% of companies do not have an agreed-upon definition of a customer need, leading to confusion and misalignment in product development.
   
   
2. The #1 reason for product development failure is failure to satisfy customer needs, making accurate need identification essential for successful innovation.
   
   
3. Customer needs remain stable over time even as products and technologies change, providing a consistent foundation for long-term strategy.
   
   
4. Customer needs can be objectively measured through quantitative research, enabling data-driven product decisions.
   
   
5. Customer needs provide an objective basis for prioritizing product investments, ensuring resources are allocated to the most valuable opportunities.
   
   

Customer Needs vs. Traditional Requirements

It's important to distinguish customer needs from related concepts:

Customer Needs (JTBD Definition)

• Metrics customers use to evaluate job execution
• Independent of any solution or product
• Stable over time regardless of technology changes
• Structured as actions and variables
• Focus on speed and accuracy of job execution

Traditional "Requirements"

• Often shaped by current product experiences
• Usually tied to specific solutions or features
• Change as technology evolves
• Frequently expressed as product attributes
• Focus on product functionality or specifications

This distinction is crucial because traditional requirements gathering often fails to capture the fundamental needs that drive customer purchasing decisions.

The Structure of Customer Needs

In the JTBD framework, customer needs follow a specific structure that ensures clarity and actionability:

1. Action Verbs

Each need begins with an action verb that describes what customers must do as part of executing their job. Common action verbs include:

• Determine: Figure out or establish something
• Identify: Recognize or find something
• Reduce: Decrease or minimize something
• Ensure: Make certain of something
• Calculate: Compute or quantify something
• Gather: Collect or assemble something

These action verbs focus on what customers need to accomplish, not how a specific product might help them do it.

2. Variables

Each need also includes a variable that must be known, established, or manipulated to execute the job successfully. Variables represent the information, conditions, or factors that customers must address.

For example, in the job of "getting to a destination on time," variables include:

• Departure time
• Route options
• Travel conditions
• Alternative routes
• Arrival time estimates

3. Complete Need Structure

When combined, the action verb and variable create a complete customer need statement that precisely describes what customers are trying to accomplish within a specific job step.

For example, in the job step "plan the stops" within the job of "getting to a destination on time," customer needs include:

• Determine the optimal sequence to make planned stops
• Determine the routes to make planned stops
• Determine the added time to make stops
• Determine if parking is available at the stops
• Determine if the location will be open when arriving

This structured approach ensures that needs are specific, measurable, and solution-independent.

The Relationship Between Jobs, Steps, and Needs

Customer needs exist within a hierarchical framework in the JTBD methodology:

1. Jobs to be Done: The overall goals customers are trying to achieve (e.g., get to a destination on time, acquire new customers, obtain a blood sample)
   
   
2. Job Steps: The discrete phases or activities customers must complete to execute the job (e.g., estimate departure time, plan stops, travel to destination)
   
   
3. Customer Needs: The specific metrics customers use to evaluate success within each job step
   
   

A typical job-to-be-done has 15-20 job steps, and each job step contains 5-10 customer needs. This means that a comprehensive understanding of a customer job typically involves 50-100 distinct customer needs.

This hierarchical structure provides a complete framework for understanding customer behavior and identifying opportunities for innovation.

Identifying Customer Needs

Accurately identifying customer needs requires rigorous research and analysis. The thrv methodology includes several approaches to ensure that portfolio companies correctly identify customer needs:

1. Job Step Analysis

Starting with a well-defined job-to-be-done, researchers break down the job into its component steps, following the natural pattern of understanding, planning, execution, assessment, revision, and conclusion.

2. Qualitative Research

In-depth interviews with job beneficiaries and job executors reveal the actions they take and the variables they consider within each job step:

• What information do they need to know?
• What decisions do they need to make?
• What factors do they need to consider?
• What makes each step difficult or time-consuming?

3. Need Statement Formulation

Based on research insights, need statements are formulated following the action-variable structure, ensuring each need is:

• Solution-independent
• Focused on job execution rather than product features
• Specific and measurable
• Clearly articulated

4. Validation Research

Identified needs are validated through additional research:

• Follow-up interviews to confirm the completeness and accuracy of need statements
• Quantitative surveys to measure the importance and current satisfaction of each need
• Tests of whether proposed solutions addressing specific needs resonate with customers

This rigorous approach ensures that portfolio companies build their strategies on a solid foundation of accurately identified customer needs.

Measuring Customer Needs

One of the most powerful aspects of the JTBD approach to customer needs is that they can be objectively measured through quantitative research:

1. Need Importance

Surveys can measure how important each need is to customers, typically using Likert scales to gauge the relative significance of different needs within a job step.

2. Current Satisfaction

Research can assess how satisfied customers are with their current ability to address each need, identifying gaps where important needs are poorly served.

3. Customer Effort

The thrv methodology measures customer effort scores for each need, quantifying the perceived difficulty of satisfying the need with current solutions.

4. Speed and Accuracy

Direct observation and time studies can measure the actual speed and accuracy with which customers can satisfy needs using current solutions.

These measurements provide portfolio companies with data-driven insights into which needs represent the greatest opportunities for innovation and differentiation.

Unmet Customer Needs

A customer need is considered "unmet" when current solutions (including the company's own products and competitive offerings) fail to help customers satisfy the need quickly and accurately. Unmet needs represent the most valuable opportunities for innovation.

In the thrv methodology, unmet needs are identified through several indicators:

1. High Customer Effort Scores

If a high percentage of customers indicate that a particular need is difficult to satisfy with current solutions, this signals an unmet need.

2. Low Speed or Accuracy

When satisfying a need with current solutions is slow, inaccurate, or both, the need is considered unmet.

3. High Importance Combined with Low Satisfaction

Needs that are highly important to customers but poorly satisfied by current solutions represent significant unmet needs.

4. Customer Workarounds

When customers develop complex workarounds to address a need, this suggests that existing solutions inadequately address the need.

Unmet needs drive customer purchasing decisions—when customers struggle to satisfy important needs, they actively seek new solutions that help them overcome these struggles.

Customer Needs and Product Strategy

Understanding customer needs transforms how portfolio companies develop their product strategies:

1. Opportunity Identification

By measuring which needs are most important to customers and least well-served by current solutions, companies can identify the most valuable opportunities for innovation.

2. Feature Prioritization

Rather than prioritizing features based on internal opinions or competitor offerings, companies can prioritize based on which features will best address high-priority unmet needs.

3. Product Design

Product designs can be evaluated based on how effectively they help customers satisfy their needs, rather than on subjective aesthetic or technical criteria.

4. Competitive Differentiation

Understanding which needs competitors fail to address allows companies to develop products that excel specifically in these areas, creating meaningful differentiation.

5. Market Sizing

By quantifying how many customers struggle with specific needs and how much they're willing to pay to address them, companies can more accurately size market opportunities.

6. Roadmap Development

Product roadmaps can be structured around progressively addressing more customer needs, with early releases focusing on the most critical unmet needs.

This needs-based approach to product strategy dramatically increases the probability of market success and accelerates growth.

Customer Needs in Marketing and Sales

Beyond product development, understanding customer needs transforms marketing and sales approaches:

1. Messaging Development

Marketing messages can focus on how products help customers satisfy specific unmet needs, creating stronger resonance than feature-focused messaging.

2. Content Creation

Content can be organized around addressing customer needs, providing value by helping customers better understand and overcome their struggles.

3. Lead Qualification

Sales teams can qualify leads based on whether prospects struggle with the needs that the company's products address, rather than relying on traditional demographic criteria.

4. Sales Conversations

Sales representatives can focus discussions on understanding prospects' unmet needs and demonstrating how the company's solutions address these specific struggles.

5. Customer Segmentation

Markets can be segmented based on which needs different customer groups find most important and most difficult to satisfy, creating more actionable segmentation than traditional demographic approaches.

This needs-based approach to marketing and sales typically generates more qualified leads, higher conversion rates, and faster sales cycles.

Customer Needs in thrv's Methodology

In thrv's proprietary Jobs to be Done methodology, customer needs serve as the fundamental unit of analysis for creating growth strategies for portfolio companies:

1. Need Identification

The thrv platform includes tools for identifying and documenting all needs within a customer's job-to-be-done, ensuring comprehensive coverage of the customer experience.

2. Need Measurement

The methodology includes quantitative research approaches to measure the importance, current satisfaction, and customer effort scores for each need.

3. Need Prioritization

Based on measurement data, the thrv platform prioritizes needs based on their potential to drive customer purchase decisions and market growth.

4. Competitive Analysis

The methodology assesses how effectively competitors' products address each customer need, identifying competitive weaknesses and opportunities for differentiation.

5. Innovation Generation

Using prioritized needs as criteria, thrv helps portfolio companies generate and evaluate innovative product concepts that address high-priority unmet needs.

6. Messaging Optimization

The methodology includes frameworks for developing marketing and sales messages that directly address customers' unmet needs.

This comprehensive approach ensures that all aspects of a portfolio company's strategy—from product development to marketing to sales—align around addressing the customer needs that matter most.

The Strategic Value of Customer Need Analysis

For portfolio companies, a deep understanding of customer needs delivers several strategic benefits:

1. Increased Innovation Success Rates

By focusing innovation efforts on validated unmet needs, companies dramatically increase the probability that new products will succeed in the market.

2. Accelerated Growth

Products designed to address high-priority unmet needs typically achieve faster adoption and more rapid revenue growth than feature-driven products.

3. Premium Pricing

Solutions that effectively address important unmet needs can command premium prices, as customers are willing to pay more for solutions that help them overcome significant struggles.

4. Reduced Development Risk

By validating which needs represent the greatest customer struggles before significant investment, companies reduce the risk of developing unwanted features or products.

5. Sustainable Competitive Advantage

A deep understanding of customer needs provides a strategic advantage that is difficult for competitors to replicate, especially when embedded in organizational processes and culture.

6. Enhanced Team Alignment

Customer needs provide a common language and framework that aligns product, marketing, and sales teams around a shared understanding of customer value.

Conclusion

Customer needs represent the most fundamental level of understanding what drives market behavior and purchasing decisions. By defining needs as the metrics customers use to evaluate how quickly and accurately they can execute their Jobs to be Done, the JTBD framework provides a structured approach to innovation that dramatically increases success rates.

The thrv methodology provides portfolio companies with sophisticated tools for identifying, measuring, and addressing customer needs in their markets. This needs-based approach accelerates growth, increases product adoption, and ultimately creates greater equity value with reduced risk.