IS your PRODUCT for CUSTOMER or USER? Or Maybe Both?

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Have you ever emphasised these things while being part of an organisation?

- Who are the decision makers in an organisation?

- Who are your product customers?

- Who are the product users?

- Our product is for customers or users?

In a conversation with a product manager of 2 different companies, I asked what is success for you in terms of your product.

One replied when My CUSTOMERS were happy! The one who will pay for the product.

Another replied when My USERS are happy! The ones who will use the product.

I guess both are right at their ends, but ultimately if you want-

- To scale,

- Vision oriented approach,

- Develop Quality,

- Increase sales

then what matters is one should align with users first.

First, it might help to define who the “customer” and “users” even are. A “customer” is essentially the purchaser. They are the ones giving us money. A “user” is the person actually using the software or product we’re designing.

Which is the best approach? Which is the best product? The answer to this is: it depends.

“Best” depends completely on the type of person involved and what role he/she is pursuing in an organisation. The personas would define the ideal profile of a potential buyer or a user.

Customer v/s User

It’s important to understand the Customer versus the User – Many enterprise products are designed around the needs of the person that will actually buy the product. They are “the customer” and that’s who the team talks to when learning about needs, and that’s who has to give the ok in order to sell the product.

However, as we alluded to above, there are often several different users of the product that also bring needs and requirements. For example, the different types of end-users, the systems administrators, management, and often other business applications.

We can also talk about how the need would change when we go from top to bottom or bottom to top…. We need to highlight the expectations of top management vs mid and lower bands.

Let us consider an example, who’s the customer for a children’s bicycle? Is it the child riding the bicycle or the parent buying the bicycle?

In many cases, the child will be the rider, which means we can think of the child as the user persona for the bicycle. The parent will be the buyer persona, the decision-maker who ultimately buys (or doesn’t buy) the bicycle for the child.

So, for you, who is the customer? If you were the product manager for this product- bicycle, working for the children’s bicycle company, you would need to consider both your user persona and your buyer persona in developing your strategy for the bicycle.

For your user persona, the child, your priority might be to make the bicycle eye-catching, colourful, having sports look, gear etc. These “features” will help the child act as your remote salesperson in the showroom, asking Mom or Dad to buy it.

At the same time, however, you also need to consider the other buyer persona, the parents, in developing the bicycle strategy. For them, you might want to prioritise making sure the bicycle structure, quality, parts, price etc. are aligned with those of a parent.

In any case, you might also want to prioritise that the bicycle should be somewhat comfortable for parents too, if they need to teach how to ride a bicycle to their child.

So, here we can see the difference, it’s One product. Two distinct personas. Two completely different sets of strategies, priorities, and features needed to develop a

product that will appeal to them both.

In this case it was just about the bicycle! But it is more likely that the products that you are crafting are much more complicated and need to address the goals and requirements of many different personas.

The one who gets benefit of using user and buyer personas

• - The product development team will understand who they are building for, what is the purpose behind this, to whom value will be delivered.
• - The marketing and business team will get an idea of how-to product, how to establish the product into the market.
• - The sales representatives will understand who their targeted audience is and what their buying criteria/choices are.
• - The authorities who are the decision makers will understand the nature of customers and buyers.
• - The customer support team will understand the perspectives of users who may ask for any help.

A product Should Address Both: The Customers, The Users!

As I’ve tried to illustrate with an example, when you’re developing products that affect multiple people across a team or organisation, it’s important to learn what your product will mean to all of them, in what sense will it deliver value. If you take their needs and goals into account, it will be of value to your organisation and can lead you to greater success. So, when you are asked who is your target customer? Answer to this question should be anyone and everyone whose job or life your product will affect. All the strategies, planning and profits should be aligned with customers and users both.