Avoid Trojan-Horse Words for Customer Problems
Be careful with blurry words in product discovery
When engaging in product development, particularly during the discovery phase, it’s crucial to be cautious about using overly general or vague words to describe customer problems. Such language can sometimes act as “Trojan-Horse” words, concealing the true issues or underlying truths. More importantly, it can hinder a Product Manager (PM) from delivering real value by keeping the actual problems unresolved. Here are three common situations where this can occur and strategies to avoid them:
1 Fancy Project Name
Sometimes, companies or teams give secret or innovative initiatives fancy names, which can be exciting. However, these names might lead teams astray over time. For example, a year-end project may sound clear to those familiar with the company’s processes, but it can be confusing for newcomers. To address this, regular sync-ups between teams can help ensure everyone understands the project’s objectives and eliminates ambiguity.
2 Overusing Product Terms
This is a lesson I learned through our own product experience. After taking over the App team, I was informed that one of the major issues at the time revolved around user onboarding. Our Customer Support team was adamant that we needed to revamp our user onboarding process, citing numerous issues.
As a new PM for the team, I naturally trusted our Customer Support team because they were on the frontlines, interacting directly with end-users. I began to assume that the problems stemmed from the user onboarding process. During the product discovery phase, I made the mistake of consistently using the term “user onboarding” when communicating with customers, stakeholders, as well as our designers and engineers. This led to a situation where we all believed that the user onboarding process itself was the problem, while the real issues remained buried and unresolved.
Without identifying the actual problems, we couldn’t find the right solutions that would genuinely provide value. We wasted several months trying to address the issues, but some persisted or manifested in different ways, despite our changes. It was only when I realized that the problem wasn’t the user onboarding process itself that we began to make progress.
We needed to deconstruct this Trojan-Horse word into customer-centric statements.
The real issue, as it turned out, encompassed two distinct flows within user onboarding. One was the first-time user onboarding, where the goal was to help users discover the benefits of our product. The other was the process for existing users to log into their accounts, with the primary objective being account access. The term “onboarding” had misled us.
For instance, if you frame user problems as “User has issues with user onboarding,” it’s a warning sign of potential risks. However, breaking these issues down into statements like “Users struggle to locate their credentials during their initial onboarding” or “Users are unable to access their benefit accounts because their accounts have not been activated” guides you in the right direction. This approach transforms vague issues into concrete problems with actionable solutions.
In our context, “onboarding” was too broad a term. Without dissecting it further, we were destined to miss the true customer problems. Similar perilous terms include “payments,” “invoices,” “login,” and “purchase.” While it’s acceptable to use these terms when communicating with stakeholders, the real issues lie in the difficulties users encounter during these stages. Your role as a PM is to identify these challenges and pinpoint the most valuable ones to solve.
3 Feelings Over Facts
Emotions are highly personal and can vary significantly among users, encompassing feelings such as sadness, anger, and frustration. Recognizing these emotions may require a certain level of empathy and sensitivity. If you possess these qualities, you might be better equipped to understand users’ emotional states. Expressing these emotions can enhance the team’s comprehension of the context. However, it’s important to exercise caution when using emotional terms, as they can be complex.
Consider a user issue like this: A user feels annoyed when they have to manually select VAT during the purchase process. Defining “annoyed” can be challenging, but it’s a valid problem to address. To effectively tackle this problem, it’s essential to provide an objective description when discussing it within the team.
In reality, the core “problem” isn’t the annoyness itself, but rather the actions users must take during the process that lead to their annoyness. In this case, the issue could be that users are uncertain about which VAT option to choose, causing them to abandon the purchase before completing it. Alternatively, users might select the wrong VAT option, and once chosen, it cannot be reversed. This prompts further questions, such as why users are required to manually select VAT. Is it possible to implement an auto-selected VAT feature to streamline the process? These questions are the key areas for a Product Manager to explore and discover, rather than solely concentrating on users’ feelings.
How to Avoid These Pitfalls:
- Stay Mindful of Language: Be aware of using fancy words, product terms, and overly emotional language. While you don’t need to eliminate them entirely, ensure they accurately represent the real problems you’re addressing.
- Break Down Broad Terms: Think from the customer’s perspective and identify their actual difficulties and issues. Use descriptive “What” words instead of focusing solely on “How” things are done.
- Combine Feelings with Actions: When describing feelings, also specify the actions or behaviours triggering those emotions. This provides context for product discovery discussions and allows for a deeper understanding of the problems at hand.
By being mindful of language and adopting a customer-centric approach, PMs can better pinpoint real issues, enabling them to devise effective solutions that deliver genuine value to users.
