- What is it? - Why is it important? - How to gather the required data?

1. How to Nail the Customer Problem Statement
by Amazon Sr PM
www.productschool.com

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5. How to Nail the Customer
Problem Statement

6. A little bit about myself…..
- Engineering + MBA, IIM Bangalore
- 11+ years of experience in Product Management, Growth & Product Marketing
- E-commerce, Payments, Telecom
Rashi Gupta

7. Agenda
1. Basics of product Management
2. Who should become a product manager ?
3. How to build a successful product?
4. Why is the customer problem statement important ?
5. How to arrive at the customer problem statement ?

8. Basics of Product
Management

9. Product
Manager
Customer
Business
Tech
UX
Product manager is the person who identifies the customer needs, business objectives, articulates the product vision &
roadmap , and rallies a team to achieve the vision.

10. Who should become a product
manager ?

11. If you are PASSIONATE about solving a real customer problem …
Key skills required …
•Deal with ambiguity
•Influence without authority
•Making the right trade-offs
•Have rationality over rationalizing

13. How to build a successful
product?

14. 1. Define the Customer Problem
2. Identify Solutions
3. Evaluate the opportunity & risks
4. Create the Product Vision & Roadmap
5. Define the Customer experience (MVP & North Star)
6. Prioritize
7. Prototype & Test
8. Launch MVP & Track Performance
9. Kill or Grow
How to build a
successful product

15. How to arrive at the customer
problem statement?

16. “A problem well stated is a problem half-solved”
-Charles Kettering
“If I had an hour to solve a problem I’d spend 55
minutes thinking about the problem and five
minutes thinking about solutions.”
- Albert Einstein

17. Why is the customer problem statement important ?
Understanding the problem is most important to building a successful product as that is
the reason they will buy the product.
Common Mistakes PMs make
• Spend lesser time on identifying the problem
• Jumping into perceived solution directly
• Think solution backwards
• Think Technology backwards
• Think competitor backwards

18. How to arrive at the customer problem statement ?
1. Identify “Who is the customer?”
2. Understand the customer journey, their needs, motivations, pain points
3. Define the customer problem(s)
4. Add quantitative and qualitative data (Customer Anecdotes/ Observations) to
validate the customer need

19. Who is the customer ?
Behaviors
(Product Usage, Frequency of usage,
usage occasion, user tenure etc.)
Demographics
(Age, Gender, Income, Region )
Attitudes
(For ex: Shop from websites driven
by trust, convenience, security)
Holistic
Customer Need
based
Segmentation
Based on benefits that customers desire,
attitudes, behaviors and psychographics
(underlying motivations)

20. Understand the customer journey, their needs, motivations, pain points
External
• Shop along (Physical/ Virtual )
• Ethnography
• In-depth interviews
• Focus group Discussions
• Calling Customers
• Surveys
Internal
• Customer analytics
• Heatmaps
• Customer Service Contacts Data
• On site Feedback loops
• Sales team data

21. Define the Problem Statement
Example of a poorly-written Customer Problem Statement
“Customers need voice enabled search because it would allow them to search faster without typing .”
This statement is poorly-written because it mentions your product and does not elaborate on a challenge that
your customers are facing.
Example of a well-written Customer Problem Statement
“New Customers from Tier -3, Tier-4 cities find it difficult to type the name which leads to incorrect results and
xx% customers dropping off from search (vs yy% for Tier 1& Tier 2 cities)”
This statement is well - written because it narrows down to “ Customer cohort” , “identifies the problem” also
validates the need with data.

22. Framework 1: For creating a Customer
Problem Statement
Today, customer cohort ___X___ while trying to do ____X ____face
challenges like ____Challenge 1____, ____Challenge 2___ due to
______X_____which leads to _______customer impact _____ and
____Business impact____as seen from _____data_____.
Customer Anecdote 1: “”
Customer Anecdote 2: “”

23. Framework 2: For creating a Customer
Problem Statement
Who ? Who is experiencing this problem?
When ? When/ Where is the problem occurring ?
What ? What is the problem / pain point ?
What's the impact on the people experiencing the problem?
/ What happens if we don’t solve it?
How ? How do we know that they are experiencing the problem?

24. Thank You

25. www.productschool.com
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