Not all people are as truthful as you think…
“Listen to your customers” is one of the most oft-repeated mantras in the business world.
It’s well established common sense, almost to the point that we roll our eyes when we hear it.
Everyone knows that getting regular customer feedback is vital to building a product (it doesn’t matter whether it’s software, hardware, or a service). You need repeated product development iterations to end up with something that customers will not only tolerate, but love. And the best way to reduce the number of needed iterations to end up with that “magic moment” product is to regularly talk with customers:
- “What do you like about this product?”
- “What’s the most frustrating part of using this product?”
- “What else do you wish this product would do?”
You get the picture.
However, what’s often not discussed is which of your customers you should talk to. It turns out that not all customers can be trusted the same. And who will give you truly honest feedback depends on whether you’re offering a free or paid product.
The Honesty Curve
A few weeks ago I came across a lecture given at Stanford University by (Adora Cheung, CEO of Homejoy, in which she discussed how to build products and talk to users.
The part that caught my attention was when she started talking about the idea of an “Honesty Curve” when gathering product feedback. Here’s the idea in general:
Imagine if you were to chart someone’s “honesty level” when talking to you about your product vs. the “degrees of separation” they have from you in a relationship:
Now imagine that you’ve created a free product of some kind (maybe an awesome app that helps you avoid people you don’t like). You could expect that different people would give you varying degrees of honest product feedback based on how close they are to you:
- Your parent’s are going to be proud of you no matter what. They may use your product, but they want to protect your self-esteem too.
- Your friends will likely be pretty honest with you because they care about you and want to see you succeed.
- Random strangers may or may not care about giving you feedback. They don’t know you and aren’t really incentivized to tell you how they really feel about their free product experience (ex: “oh here’s a survey, I guess I’ll just click through this real fast”) → assuming they even care to open your survey in the first place…
Put all that together, and you likely end up with an “honesty curve” that looks something like this:
But now imagine that you decide to make this a paid product. People are now paying actual money ($$$) to use your app to avoid people they don’t like. That means that who you can trust to be “real” with you on whether or not the product actually works changes. Money alters relationship dynamics in important ways. For a paid product you can easily picture the following:
- People close to you (ex: your friends and family) may be afraid to tell you that your product is actually a terrible idea or has a bunch of bugs. They want to encourage you, and the fact that they are paying for the service adds some awkwardness into their ability to give you uncomfortable feedback.
- However random strangers have no problem whatsoever giving you brutally honest feedback. They don’t know you (and don’t care about your feelings) but they’re incentivized to tell you what is good/bad about your product since it is their money on the line. They are suddenly your most valuable source of feedback.
Thus, an “honesty curve” for a paid product may look like this:
The main takeaway is this: don’t treat all customer feedback the same. Who you decide to trust will depend greatly on whether or not you’re offering a free vs. paid product.
Applying the “The Honesty Curve” to Your Personal Life
One of my favorite things about good frameworks is that you can apply them to multiple areas of life. The “Honesty Curve” is a great example of this.
When you are making an important “free” decision (one that costs someone nothing to tell you their opinion), you are often best suited to ask those in your inner circle for advice and feedback.
- “What do you think about changing my college major from X to Y?”
- “Should I take this job?”
- “How should I go about asking for a promotion at work?”
These kinds of questions are ideal for those who are incentivized by your relationship to see you succeed (it’s one reason why developing a personal board of directors is so important).
Folks closer to you on the “X-axis” are far better sources of advice in “free” decision scenarios than “random strangers” (ex: asking folks on Twitter or consulting online blogs/articles) could ever be.
Just be aware that there may be some “paid” decisions (ex: ones that could exact a price on the relationship) that are actually better suited to the “random strangers” feedback group. This is one reason why professional therapists and executive coaches have value in the modern world. They can provide the kind of honest feedback and insight that someone closer to you may be unable to give.
Just remember that not everyone is always incentivized to give you the truth you’re looking for. Keep that in mind, and you’ll not only ask the right questions, you’ll ask them to the right people.
