It is very common that there is always a difference in what customers want and what companies offer. The process where a product person or company tries to understand customers’ needs and designing a product is a very complex task.
In my personal experience i have managed many customers who will have very complex requirements which will have various conditions and thus often contradictory. It is very important for a product person to map what are the vital customer needs, which features the customer would MUST need, and prioritize them first. Also product person should get the vision of what the customer would like to have along with the must need ones and what they would hate to see in the product. This process of understanding your customer helps in getting better product vision.
Sound complex isn't it? I used to struggle at this task too in my initial product days, but not any more, I came across a tool called Value Proposition Canvas, this tool helps to do the above mentioned task of understanding and prioritizing customer needs in a systematic way.
VALUE PROPOSITION CANVAS STRUCTURE
The Customer Profile
The circle represents the customer profile. Make sure you start with customer profile, this section has three parts: jobs, pains, and gains.
Jobs: this is basically to list down all the task your customer can do using your product.
Pains: what problems will your product solve for your customer
Gains: What benefits does the customer get when using your product
The Value Map
The square on the canvas represents the value proposition map. this is also divided into three parts.
Products & services: In this part you should list all the features, products and services you’ll provide to your customer .
Pain Relievers: Our main focus is on how your product will ease the customers’ pain. Your product should act like relievers to the pains mentioned in the customer profile.
Gain creators: This is where you show how your product adds value to customers. How does your product help customers achieve their goals? List everything that offers something new or improves the user experience.
If each and every point in customer profile has direct mapping with the value map, that means your product is perfect market fit product.