The causes of your customers problem may not always be what you or your customer expects them to be. If you can name causes your customer has not considered, they are likely to be impressed. Do this as part of your marketing and they are more likely to sign up. Do this when they are a client and delight them with a new insight into their business.
This is the final question in the Problem Element of the Circuit Questionnaire. Follow the link to the page, which gathers together all the posts in this sequence.
Why Finding the Causes of your Customers Problem is Important
So, what exactly is a cause? In this sense, a cause is some circumstance responsible for the problem the customer experiences. The biggest difficulty everyone experiences, is identifying the cause of a problem they face.
Indeed, it is often true identifying the cause is 90% of the solution to a problem. Once there is clarity about the cause, the solution to the problem can be obvious. So, it is worth spending time digging into the problem, really understanding what it is.
If the problem is not understood, it is easy to waste a lot of time dealing with the effects of the problem. This is sometimes described as a sticking plaster approach to a problem. Dealing with effects can be costly and the costs become regular because the underlying cause is not identified.
Whilst it is true in theory, dealing with the cause of a problem will result in improved performance; the cause can be a daunting prospect or integral to a lot of other issues, beneficial to some extent. So, solving the immediate problem may generate further problems down the road.
Stimulating New Ideas Through New Causes
So, let’s try to be positive and approach this as an exercise in stimulating new ideas. A client is likely to seek help because they are stuck. They have tried everything and the problem will not go away. Usually this is because the problem is deeply entrenched in organisational culture. If there is no organisation, it is likely to be some psychological reason for the business owner.
Ask the owner to describe the problem. Try to draw a diagram together and then interrogate it. Try to understand how the client and their organisation understands the problem. Ask questions like:
- How did this problem start?
- Who benefits from the current situation? How?
- Who loses out? How?
- Why has the problem persisted for so long?
- What effects is it having on your organisation?
- What have you tried to resolve the problem? With what result?
Note you are working together to build a picture of the problem. There is nothing judgemental in any of this and you are not seeking a solution or the cause at this stage.
Once you have the facts before you, you can begin to explore causes. What would happen if you changed this? You are trying to find the cause, not a solution. Causes can be deeply bound up in organisational culture and this can be notoriously difficult to change because so much of it is habit.
Aim to Stimulate New Ideas
Let’s try an easy problem: “my website doesn’t work”. In real life, the problem is likely to be more specific but this is just an illustration. If there is a technical solution, this is easy to resolve but what happens if technically the website works?
Does the customer understand how it works? Again easy to resolve if the answer is “no”. But if “yes”, what next? What if the reason it doesn’t work is elsewhere? Maybe the website does not meet the organisation’s needs? Why would that be? Perhaps it does meet their needs but no-one will take responsibility for it. Why would that be?
You can see the question moves from technical solutions to deeper questions about organisational culture. If you are usually approached by clients with intractable problems, then you are more likely to encounter this type of market, at its wits end, unable to find a rational solution because they have lost sight of the cause of the problem.
The Root Cause
Most problems that are not straightforward, cannot be resolved by reference to an instruction book. What might start as an apparently simple problem may be the gateway to far greater issues.
Finding the root cause may be painful but it can lead to the rapid resolution of a problem and possibly several other apparently unconnected problems. If something is having a negative effect in one area, the chances are it will in others. This is one reason so many website designers disappoint, because they are not aware of the reasons why their work so often does not seem successful. An online solution may be capable of great things but not if the organisation deploying it is not.
If the client trusts you and you can find the space to dig into the problem, it is usually possible to find the root cause. Once your client sees and understands the root cause, then perhaps you will together find a way to tackle it. They may need support while they do this, from someone who is not embedded in organisational culture. If you can’t help them, help them find someone who can.
Can you tell a story of the unearthing of a root cause?