Mark Cuban on Why You Should Never Listen to Your Customers

Agreed with post. Same case I made with my blog post with an example of Apple. Just imagine if they had come up with a phone which listed to conventional wisdom at that time on smart-phones which need to have a stylus or physical keyboard. It's the company's job to deliver on next-generation devices. If the customer is so right, they'd probably created a company for it. Don’t Listen To Your Customers. That Is Your Key Differentiator http://goo.gl/MQaCa

It depends which stage your company is in. It make sense to develop feature rich/enterprise quality product using vision or imagination but the criteria to verify your product/vision are from your customers. Obtaining customer feed back is always a good things and you need to make judgement call based on feed backs and customer demands

I felt the same after 2004 and 2010. ;)

Funny, all the non-Billionaires telling the Billionaire he's wrong. No, not show you the money. Show me the Money.

Better get Dirk some more help

Employees usually have their hands tied, when responding to customers needs.  If management would only listen. I've worked in customer service most of working life.  Customers want something for nothing, managers only care about their paychecks, and employees are nothing but a ball that gets kicked down the field.

No truer words were ever spoken.

I love the last paragraph.  Dead on.  The title of this terrific article is misleading. Mr.Cuban doesn't say never to listen to your customer. Add to this the Peter Drucker admonition that the customer is always right as a matter of policy; but, alas, is often wrong as a matter of fact. Do we love Mr.Cuban or what?

Almost accurate. What you want to do is actually to enslave the customer to your product. That is, come up with something that people will HAVE to use, like or not, because otherwise they'll be left behind. That's how the whole personal computer industry came to dominate the world, starting in the early 80's. Nobody was psyched that now they had electronic spreadsheets instead of having to do the work with pen and paper. They didn't have a choice of liking it or not - they simply had to use, or risk losing their jobs. Who benefits? Whoever sells the electronic spreadsheet. Ultimately, business is about taking money from the other person's pocket and putting it into yours. And innovation is about finding new ways to get people to give you as much of their money as you possibly can without breaking the law. And that, children, is why all of our lives suck.

After the 2008 election, I frankly don't give enough intelligent credit to the mass public to make an informed opinion on anything much less progressive ideas regarding technology.

To follow up on the thoughts in this article, here is an approach that I find very effective at leveraging customer insights for product innovation.  It applies whether a customer identifies a new/revised feature that they want during a sales call, during face-to-face conversation, via a site feedback, or any other way: immediately ask the customer this question: “if you had the feature that you just described, what problem or pain point would it allow you to resolve?” Here’s why you want to ask: 10 customers could ask for 10 distinct features, but behind all 10 requests, a single pain point could be lurking. Guide product innovation using your best intelligence on customer problems that overlap with your company’s product vision and internal capabilities. Once in a while, a customer will propose a new feature that turns out to be a home run. However, the odds suggest that the product manager, not an individual customer, is in the best vantage point from which to formulate features that really resonate with customers.

Insightful article ... inaccurate title.

Yeah, as a software developer I understood this by the time I was about 16... Thanks for telling us something that everyone in the tech industry learned decades ago...

I have a few things to say, "Build it and they will come." "Another man's trash is another man's treasure." "Don't try to fix something that is not broke." It may not suit some of your customers but it will be just right for the rest. People like things simple; leave it at that. There will always be someone to buy it and there will always be someone to make it better. People are critics and they will judge without consequences. Take their insights into consideration but use it when you definitely need it.

Henry Ford is famous for saying,"If I'd asked my customers what they wanted, they would have said, 'A faster horse'."

Thanks for sharing your experience Mark Cuban, helping us to avoid mistakes that have already been made. "part of every entrepreneur's job is to invent the future"  I really like that quote, even though it's obviously not easy to do that.

Good article. But I think it's OK to get feedback, feature requests from Customers but we should be able to filter out negative requests that can deviate our vision!  In my Lean startup I have made a LaunchRock page but at the end I also ask the newly registered user to participate in a small survey. This lets me to understand the customer needs. 

Well said!

The basic idea isn't bad. Just try to be a bit more creative. The classical pitfall is not to listen to what clients say, but to listen to what clients need. This requires a different approach. Ask what the expect and they will respond in a conservative fashion. Ask about their lives, how they use the product and how it fits within their lives, you get more support for the current product (score once) and get the idea on how the product may fit even better, or be replaced by another product or concept that suits the needs (objectives), not the expectations (means).

This comment resonates with What Eric Reis,Steve Blank have been saying to a minimal extent.The top business people invent the future and take the steps back to see which steps created the future...Think about that for a moment. @replike:twitter 

He's a

I think there should always be some form of dialog w customers to see what you missed on delivering... it's just good customer service sense... I'll agree with Mr. Cuban's statement though that the entrepreneur should look to lead the customer to new ways or ideas that benefit sales or growth and not the other way around.

You don't know what you don't know - a new technology company has to direct all it's energy at all levels to inform people what they have done/ made/created - that's 100% "outward directed" effort  .... no deskdrivers - no internal meetings- no advisors - no consultants ... if you haven't got manic vision and your life is filled with other non related interests - don't even start a business. Mr Cuban is not a 'guru' - he's better than that - he's done it!

The problem with a lot of management gurus is - they analyze a success story, tear it apart into something of a management "mantra" that catches the eyes of people - even if it (universally) makes sense or not. Mark's "mantra" is no different. I concur with Charles' point - a Google can afford a misadventure like Wave, or Orkut. Can a startup afford that, with limited resources? Can a startup firm afford to make a product for HP WebOS just because it is/was technically a "better" platform and ignore what customers want?..I think we all were "lured" into reading this article and that pretty much is the objective of a lot of management "gurus" out there...with all due respect to Mr Cuban..

I think people are taking Mark's point too literally. Listen to your customers or the market is about understanding the pains/problem. Understanding the problem is the basis of envisioning a solution. Don't rely on customers to tell you what to build, that's your job.

I think you have to be careful here. "Never Listen to Your Customers" is misleading. It's more accurate to say "don't do exactly what your customers tell you". The reason is typically customers speak in terms of symptoms and not actual problems. Building product to solve symptoms is bad. Building product to solve problems is good. Customer input is just another data point. Listen to your customers but realize they are not expert problem solvers. They are only experts in the way they do business today and that way is most likely flawed. Take their input and figure out what the real problem is or use it to validate that your solution could be used to solve their problems and alleviate their symptoms.

imagine and keep innovating

I believe he said also something to the effect of "Customers are not responsibly to know what the want. It's my job to tell them what they want. " he was referring to the  iphone. MONEY!

This is especially true if your employees use your products.  I am guessing most of the employees at Intuit don't use Quickbooks.  As a result, their product and company would benefit from feedback of people that use the product. 

Customers are great at finding problems. I would listen to them as far as what challenges they face, but not how to solve them.

Wasn't it Henry Ford who stated words to the effect of: 'If I had listened to my customers, I would have designed a faster horse.'

The title "you should never listen to your customers" is a bit misleading.  Customers opine more strongly with their wallets than by their spoken opinion.  That said, I argue a profitable business, Cuban's empire included, listens to it's customers by tallying their sales.

Take a lesson from google. Google allows their engineers 20% of time each week to make there own product ideas. This is how they came up with products such as  Gmail, Google Maps and also Google Wave.  Was Google Wave a success? Google thought it would be!    Have you used "google wave" lately or if ever?Google said "It was going to change the way weused emails for ever!" Year later they removed the google wave product because hardly anyone used it.Have tried google maps? When you don't listen to your customersit becomes more of a hit or miss approach.That's why google allows  their  engineers 20% of their time toward their own product ideas  

As Steve jobs put it, Customers are knuckle heads, they don't know what they want.

Seems pretty obvious to me you should do both. Customer feedback and invent the future. Don't bet the farm on either exclusively.

Excellent Beney,   I refer to the above as the difference between "Symptom Vs Cause"  The theme behind Mark Cuban's article above is spot on, the life of the entrepreneur is to regularly kick their own ass and ask how can we do better. But the best way of keeping repeat customers is to also have one ear listening to what they have to say.  The mistake is to be "Product Centric" and get wrapped up with what is being sold.  Being "Customer Centric" and mindful of being "constantly evolving" means we take the customers on a journey where they stay with you. It doesn't take a billion dollars either, interpreting with the right mindset; a balanced approach and understanding of what our roles actually are - means that even small regular improvements add up and don't have to be mind-blowingly creative.. just customer focussed.

Like Henry Ford said, "If I had asked my customers what they wanted, they would have told me a faster horse."

Well put

Love the comment, very true

Love the post. Very true

If you're an average company working on new products then get feedback from your customers. If you're trying to be the next Facebook or Apple, use your vision.

and do you have a billion dollars?

Finally!  Your are right on.  When someone leads a company he must take it upon himself to lead not follow.  Most customers will never know or understand what it takes to make their own company successful never mind yours.  Bravo Mr. Cuban, Bravo!!!!

Hi Mark! I agree with you up to some extent but not completely. But, Customers always try to think about themselves. Very few customers try to think about your products.

In that case, why do so many companies spend so much money making up and distributing questionnaires and surveys to their customers? Is what they do simply a case of "following the herd"?

I disagree - whole-heartedly. There's nothing wrong with assessing the customer's wants or needs, even by asking them directly. It's up to YOU, however, as the vendor to INTERPRET their statements and look for what they REALLY need as opposed to what they asked for. For example, everyone "wants" a million dollars. What do they REALLY want? Financial security. How many lottery winners have wound up broke within a few years or months of winning? People "like" the iPad, but what do they REALLY want? People "like" cell (smart)phones, but what do they REALLY want? People "want" "electric" cars, but what do they REALLY want?

The customer *IS* always right. It's up to you, the vendor, to decide whether or not you can provide for the customer's needs and desires. Remember this rather perverse take on the Law of Supply and Demand: The customer demands it, you supply it, and that's how you stay in business. If you cannot fit that into your business model, its up to YOU to qualify your customers. It's not up to the customer. Conversely, it's up to the customer to qualify you as (one of) their vendor(s), not up to you.

"'money doesn't buy you happiness.' In most cases it does" Well, no, it doesn't. It buys gratification and that may or may not lead to happiness, rather like an exotic vacation or devastating orgasm. A purchase is an event. Happiness is a state of being.

Mark's little gem of a parable  is more akin to a dose of fool's gold. Did you really compose that crap Mark.  Surely not. Sack the writer, or if you perchance you did write it, stop it. Please.

Customers do not care about your products. All they care about is themselves. It's okay to listen to them but your action should follow your heart.

Beautiful. This is precisely the reason I am at odds with the Lean Startup Methodology. Customers don't know what they want until they see it. If you can make your customers happier or believe that what you are selling will get them more sex, it's a safe bet that you are selling a winning product. Most product developers are just plain lazy and out of touch with their customers on a human level. They think people want to pay less or for their products to do more. If their competitors have three products, they want to sell five. If those products sell well it is in spite of them and not because of them. If you understand what motivates your buyers at the most basic level, you are already several steps ahead of your competitors.

The point some commenters make that companies do need to understand what customers want functionally is a good one. Apple did this in the most efficient way imaginable.  Steve Jobs himself and his colleagues were themselves "super customers".  They knew that if they built something that they loved to use, other people would too.  As technologists they also knew what was out there being developed that they could incorporate into their products to make them do the things they wanted them to do.  Because of this they had no need for "middlemen" that would gum up the product development process. 

Oh businesses need not worry about asking customers anything of any value. I've never seem such poor customer service in my entire life as what exists in America today. Clearly, no one is listening to anybody out here.

But sometime what happens as when company has asked people for their needs, at the time they say about the features which they feel for need. But then, when after sometime firm satisfy need of people, at that time people do not found product with those features be helpful as it be little late for them for the product usefulness. So might be due to this reason  firm not get the benefit by satisfying need of people. And as this is the time when each day people demand for something new and different so it be little tough or harder for company to attract people and to get the success.

while this might hold true for innovations in new media for consumers which is Mark's background, it does not for companies selling technology to businesses.  Most of us selling to businesses know the key is to have conversations that identify how to wow customers by understanding what they need for their business to be successful through your technology. i.e. results or pain resolution.   

This is the same with what Steve Jobs said.. Apple does not ask its customers what they want to see in the products because if they ask, by the time the product is delivered, the customers may then have new wants/needs. Most people do not recognize a need until they see one. Apple creates new features all the time and when delivered, they give the customer a "wwoooww" reaction. 

Excellent advice from Mark! @Derrick also add to the "Most Hated Sayings" list "money doesn't buy you happiness. In most cases it does.

This is fantastic. No, the customer is not always right. I absolutely hate that saying. Those who insist that the customer is always right is following the pack, not leading. Entrepreneurs are supposed to be leaders of the pack.

Mark Cuban would be that idiot.

I agree with Mark's message, but you have to really dig to understand what he's saying.  First, I don't agree that you don't listen to your customers.  It's HOW you listen to your customers.  Mark speaks in terms of presenting features, products or solutions - not the NEEDS of the customer, which should be void of solutions.  If you innovate to have the best 8 track cassette, then yes you will be a dinosaur because a competitor found a better way to meet the needs of the customer.  Customer's needs rarely change over time, but solutions do.  For example, the job of storing music has largely remained unchanged for hundreds of years.  Pen and paper, the phonograph, the 8 track, the CD, iPod, etc. are all solutions for storing music, and obviously evolved.  But the job of storing music has remained unchanged.  When you study your customers from this standpoint, and identify the unmet needs in the market, then this kind of innovation can accelerate the "kick your own ass" approach to winning because you've solved the job or task of the customer better than your competition. 

Too bad Henry Ford didn't invent the automobile.

I think that Artin brings up a good point about Henry Ford and the faster horse, but that is exactly what Henry Ford delivered.  He delivered the ability to transfer things/people between location A and B faster, which is what they were asking for.  As a company asking a customer what they want, the wrong thing to do is to provide them literally what they want.  The right thing to do is to take what they are asking for and to provide them the functionality that they are asking for.  Companies should not be order takers. It boils down to the questions that you ask a customer and how you analyze the answers.  Some thought has to go into them.  A blanket question of "what do you want?" is a loser question.  Trying to understand their business, the problems that they have, and then digging into that will be helpful. This love for the Jobsean view of building a company/product only works while you have a sugar daddy funding this.  This can be a company or it can be a VC, but you have to have money to fund operations while you are figuring out what the customers want.  Sugar daddies eventually want you to make money, because that is how they make money.  They aren't funding you because you are cool, they are funding you because they think you will produce a product that makes money for them.  You eventually have to talk to the customers.  Just because Jobs/Cuban or someone else did it a specific way doesn't mean that is the only way.  I don't know about Cuban, but Jobs' history is definitely littered with failures (Lisa and Ping come to mind).  I'd like to know how their testing with customers went before launch. I have worked for 3 startups in my career. The 2 that interfaced with their customers made money and eventually sold based on a good offer.  The one that refused to talk with their customers made a smoking hole in someone's wallet to the tune of $750k or so.  It ends up that if the had listened to their customers they would have made a $125 million payout and my 10% would have given me in a different view of things.

generalization is good to read but I would prefer to apply subjective thought and deal on a case by case basis. i think its definately important to evangelize internally and then run a check on the customer base to know how desperate they are for the planned roadmap. Also its a great business game as sometimes customers punish good intentions. Some meek companies adopt a policy to be not the first mover but again its in context of such companies and the domains that they operate in.

Great points, we were talking about this concept in a similar respect. At some point the business and it's vision need to take precedence in the entrepreneurs mind. Look at all of the great technological advancements in history, they were successful because they paved their own way. 

"Build it and they will come" is the top level message I am distilling from this article. I think another reader already comments on the typical outcome of this approach. Sure, if you are building a new product to entry the market place and the entrepreneur is representative of the target market, you may get strong adoption.  However, if you are managing an existing product, try getting your sales team to sell a product that solves problems your target customers have not yet realized or can appreciate. Solving pervasive problems people are willing to pay to have solved is a sound point of departure.  Balance between innovation and solving known business problems with tangible value associated to the solution is a good indication of balance. 

If you're asking customers questions, WHAT questions are you asking them, and are they the right ones to help your business today and possibly provide insight for you to conjure up your own future.

"If I had asked people what they wanted, they would have said faster horses." Henry Ford

Yeah, nasking customers about their problems is legitimate (even if consumers don't  knowing future problems, exisiting problems can point the way). But perhaps asking them their solutions gives less value.

"Customers didn't really see the value or need until they saw the new product. When they tried it, they loved it." And how to make them try the product if they don't see the value or need in the first place ?

What an idiot would come up with this kind of colon garbage? There are thousands of levels where you have to engage the Customer! Innovation is possibly not one, depending on your product. Generalisations like this are just brainless!

Mark's title is extreme...although he does temper it at the end. Here @Kampyle where customer feedback is our religion, we see the customer base as a great way to crowd-source innovation for new ideas/products. Additionally, even if you want to follow Mark's advice and go solo on coming up with the "next best thing", you still want to get feedback after you launch your site/product/service...becasue as even Mark admits "your customers can tell you the things that are broken". At the end of the day, your customers are the best usability experts and they will help you make your amazing "thing" even better.

That kind of thinking cost me $12.5 million a few years ago.  You can guess I am not a huge fan of it. One has to leverage ideas with financial realities that someone else in the business was not interested in doing. It would be a good idea to verify that you are at least going in the right direction. You can do this by talking to some potential customers.

I think that to make a broad statement like this is pushing it! To be successful you need the "right' balance of inputs. You need a deep understanding of your most important customers' needs. How you get it is the magic question. Is it listenening only or all the way going way deeper and spend days appreciating their needs in their own environment to understand unmet needs or a mix in between? From the example that you give, it takes more info to really appeciate what went wrong. For one company that succeeds at doing this their way only, there are hundreds who fail. Failure from the get go or as you go. RIM is he best example of a company that did it their way, my way, now wondering on the highway where to go next.

I found this article so refeshing and affirming. I started no limits education with a vision of improving education to better equip young people for the world they're going into. My focus is young people becoming learners - focussing on how you learn, rather than what you learn and being moitvated to learn; developing the capabilities to succeed - in anyhting and developing enterprise capability. I believe if young people have goals they're passionate about and the mindset, capabilities and skills to realise those goals; can learn, unlearn, relearn and are enterprising, they can achieve anyhting and make the most of opportunities. If I had listended to what the eductation establishment wanted I would still be working in local government! And our time is coming! Beverley Burton, no limits education

Marc is 100% correct. Many customers are still locked in yesteryear and even if you have the next best thing today, it will take them some time to adapt. What perhaps many here are mixing up is innovation and maintenance. If you innovate, you look to the future and that is not where your customers look. If you want to maintain a current product, you ask your customers. Usually production flows where a new product is innovated and then passed on to maintenance, whilst the innovators focus on the next innovation.

Steve Jobs: You can't just ask customers what they want and then try to give that to them. By the time you get it built, they'll want something new.Interview with Inc. Magazine for its "The Entrepreneur of the Decade Award" (1 April 1989)

u made my day :-)

On the other hand, however, one of the most successful company in the industry Cisco Systems always listens to its customers. Moreover, this "hint" of John Chambers is regarded as a key to their success. So maybe this article is right only for small startup company?

I beleive the article name is a bit missleading "Why You Should Never Listen to Your Customers". We must listen to our customer but the question is what we are asking! We never ask the customer what he wants. We must ask the suctomer what are the problems and challanges that he is trying to solve and then come with the best solution. Innovation doesn't come from customers. It comes from us after understanding what is/are the market problems in our target market.

Apple is on the companies that always invented their features.  Steve Jobs wouldn't ask what their customers wanted. 

Mark's last three words say it all, "That's your job." While necessity is the mother of invention, it's our job to raise the baby.

While agree it can be dangerous to react to customer feedback and input in a technology and/or product business, I think it's important to consider client perspectives in a services business to make sure you're on the same page and addressing their key concerns and needs.

Agree Mr. Cuban if the customer knew how to innovate, they would have done it already. Innovation is about thinking years past what the customer wants, then creating the desire for the product. IPod, IPad, Facebook, Netflix, Twitter. You can't drive into the future by looking in the rear view mirror.

I agree with this article, but also heard about this very topic from Steve Jobs, years ago, I forget Jobs' famous quote, but in short, Jobs philosophy (per the article I read) was the customers really dont know what they want until you give it to them ... At Burger King you can have it your way and yet they are getting their asses kicked by McDonald's ... point proven.

Exactly right. The customer is not thinking in terms of the future, they are thinking about receiving satisfaction in that moment. It is important to listen to the customers but do not base your entire strategy off of their wants because it will must likely lead to your business being a complete resemblance of the competition greatly reducing your opportunity for success. Entrepreneurialambitions.com

Great input. I never liked the statement "the customer is always right" as it seems to always irk me.  I really admire the competitive drive you have in business as it clearly is infused in throughout the article.  Great to hear you speak at Business Insider's Ignition Conference on Dec 1st in NYC. Enjoy this Sunday, glad the NBA is back!