Summary: Value pains are factors that customers don’t want. Another word is detriments. They are the factors that make customers groan “I wish it didn’t do that! Finding the value pains helps you identify opportunities.
Value Pains
If only it didn’t do that…Value Pains are another term for detriments. Value Pains are what people don’t like about a particular product, service, company or industry, or what they don’t like about fulfilling an Ultimate Goal, or job. In other words, they are things that stop people getting the jobs done they want to achieve. Products should not make people feel this way – they can be seen as impurities, imperfections – simply things that need to be eliminated.
I’m sure we can all think of many Value Pains. These are often compromises, restrictions, or limits we feel are placed upon us. As they are detriments they can be functional, time, convenience, financial, psychological, emotional or social in nature.
We will often feel – this could be better, easier, quicker, nicer, cheaper and so on.
For example, Value Pains could be – waiting too long for service in a restaurant, queuing at bars, not being able to get a babysitter on a weekend, overpriced food at cinemas, not being able to hit a golf ball, difficulty in returning food items to supermarkets, complexity of wine labels and brands, or being a popstar (prior X-Factor!).
All are things we seek to minimise or avoid. Again, when you come to Market Research, if presented with a product or feature, as always you need to get to the actual job or outcome – “Exactly why is that a problem? What does it stop you doing?” Cure Value Pains, and you’ve got the makings of a good idea!
Value Risk -Buyers want to find fault
It’s time to take off our rose tinted glasses for a while. These are another type of Value Plain – the detriments as perceived by the buyer or the features that lead to them – as offered by you. These are the reasons why people will find fault with the Value you offer them.
Often companies ignore these, deluding themselves by thinking of all the great things that customers will love about their offering but failing to see that customers are naturally suspect of offerings and don’t want to spend time learning or doing something new. Consumers often tend to look at all the reasons they shouldn’t buy something rather than why they should. Benefits really need to stack up and even when they do, there’s no guarantee that old habits will be changed. Michael Porter calls these switching costs – because changing to something else always involves costs along the detriments in some way be it functional, psychological, emotional, time, convenience, social, financial or many of these!
In this case, you may know the Value Factors, you may have cured Value Pains by focusing on the Opportunity Scores, but it’s imperative to look on the down side, and not see the world through rose tinted glasses!
A Better Ipod
For example, if you launched a competitor to the Ipod, which allowed downloads of music for free whilst on the move (mobile downloads wherever you are), doubled the storage capacity, was far easier and more enjoyable to use (a simple task in my view – dam dials!) and was the same price or even less than an Ipod, you might think – “Great we have excelled in the Famous 4 – people will flock to us!”
Wrong!
There are many Value Factors you can’t excel in right away – for example ITunes and its user base, Apple protection software, a recognised brand, a loyal user base, wide coverage with partners in retail and distribution, thousands of peripherals, and so on. The lack of these would all be seen as Value Risks by prospective customers – so what Value Risks are we up against with such an idea?
Look at what a prospective customer might say despite your superior offering -
Functional – I know how my Ipod works, I know where to get my songs from, it all works well, and perhaps Ipod will make their next version able to download on the fly or double storage anyway?
Financial/Cost – I spent a lot on my Ipod, I also have spent a lot on music and peripherals, all this will be wasted if it is not compatible, and I’m not ready to spend more on this so soon.
Psychological/emotional –I trust my Ipod, Apple have always treated me well, I look cool with Apple, Apple is cool, I have never heard of these guys, will people think I’m weird if I get one or will they think I’m cooler?
Time/convenience – My Ipod suits me fine, there’s a lot of hassle in buying a new thing and learning all the new things I have to do, I put a lot of effort into getting into Ipod, I can’t be bothered to learn something new.
So as you can see, customers will look at what you have, and sometimes decide that what you offer, has more perceived detriments than perceived value, even when it cures the Value Pains they have been complaining about!
Remember, it’s all about customers perceptions, that’s all that counts.
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