Adding Customer Value with the “So What?” Technique
On the surface, the “So what?” technique is pretty simple. For example, you have a feature of your product that you’d like to promote, with this technique the first question you should ask yourself about that feature is, “So what?” With this question, you are trying to drill down to why this feature matters and how it is adding customer value. Keep asking the question until you can’t get anymore understanding out of what your product feature offers, and then you will have a true understanding of the customer value it provides. Just keep in mind that you may find that it doesn’t add much value, that is when you’ll want to reconsider the features that you are promoting.
The beauty of the “So what?” technique is that it can be used in many contexts. Say you have your product features figured out, but you want to create a piece of content to further promote your product to your target audience. When brainstorming ideas, use the “So what?” technique to make sure that your content piece is providing value to your audience. The key is to look past your own desires for the piece and focus on what the customer needs. If you aren’t providing them with value, the content won’t resonate with them and you’re essentially wasting your efforts in creating it.
From a day to day business operations aspect, you can use the “So what?” technique for things like document creation and emails. Using this technique can help you understand what is most important to the coworker or client the document is meant for, allowing you to focus on this and remove any fluff. If a document is too long and filled with content that simply isn’t of use to them, you’ll lose their interest in your entire effort. As for emails, this technique can help keep them focused and make them easier to digest by the recipient. We all get far too many emails a day, your recipient will appreciate that you put effort into only providing the information that is important to them.
The “So what?” technique may be simple in practice, but the question can be a tough one to answer at times. It’s worth the thought and effort, however, and the insight it provides can be invaluable to many aspects of your business. Give it a try the next time you’re creating something and let us know how it helped you create value for your audience.
