When you talk to customers about a specific problem, both sides will overestimate the problem's importance. As customers "focus" on that problem during the interview, it may seem very important in the moment and they'll be excited about solving it.
But when the solution is shipped and customers are now forced to prioritize using it against solving other problems they have, it may very well happen that the problem wasn't so important in the first place.
This can explain poor adoption of a new product or feature. It's especially relevant in B2B.
To overcome this: 1) Be aware of it, try to be objective and avoid this form of Confirmation bias 2) After interviews, ask customers to rank it against other problems they're trying to solve (e.g. a week after, not immediately as the bias will still be in the moment)
This technique is called "Customer Problem Stack Ranking"
Tags: product management user research
ID: 2021-0517-0817
References:
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