Who doesn't hate it when the office copier goes down? Everybody scurries away from it, yelling for the closest administrative assistant's help as they go. After all, who on earth knows how to fix these things? And who has time to figure it out?


Opening the side panel shows a diagram that only a NASA engineer can decipher. . . The worst part: when the copier goes down the office comes to a grinding halt.
Xerox seems to have gotten the message. In an online Business Week article, Xerox Refocuses on its Customers, the company made an innovative decision.
"Rather than following the company's standard development process–build the prototype, get customer feedback–they decided to hold focus groups with customers and potential customers to find out what they thought of the idea."
In the article that follows, a super case study unfolds. Basically, as Stephen Hoover, VP of Xerox's R&D stated: "The team had a certain idea of what customers wanted. Actually talking to them. . .really changed that."
Xerox refers to its new stance as "customer-led innovation," and has let its new process guide the launch of its new products. After all, although the company always emphasized its 5-6% of revenues spending on R&D, that really wasn't doing much to bolster sales. With increasing pressure from a number of competitors, it was time to assess the corporate M.O.
Xerox Chief Technology Officer, Sophie Vandebroek, stated the new goal quite succinctly: "Involving experts who know the technology with customers who know the pain points."
Now, Ms. Vandebroek's scientists and engineers are "encouraged" to meet with some of the customers who visit Xerox showrooms. Other R&D people observe customers' interaction with their products as ethnographers chart customer behavior.
Startling facts have emerged for Xerox in this process. For example: in the article, Xerox engineers and scientists were debating the development of the company's first two engine copier. The team, all 30 of them, "thought customers would want to use the second engine for fancy inks or special colors."
What actually emerged from a Webcast conversation with customers? Why not have the second engine allow the copier to operate at half speed rather than shut down if a problem arose? In that way, a broken machine would continue to operate in a diminished capacity until the repairman's arrival.
Business people who sat around a conference table during the Webcast were so psyched about this idea, that Xerox's stunned R&D team took it to heart–and made it happen. I'll bet Canon, Kyocera and every other Xerox competitor sits up and takes notice. . .
Proof again that when companies really listen to their customers' needs and comments, and they take steps to offer them products and services to address their pain, great things happen. We're all consumers, after all, and when a specific company offers us something we truly need what it's really saying is: "We understand you and we know what you need. You've told us and we heard you. Let us help you. We're here to address your pain points."
Who among us wouldn't immediately bond to that brand? Who among us wouldn't respond on a deeply human, emotional level? Talk about empathy. Talk about brand building. Wow. Doesn't it make you wonder why more companies don't engage their customers in dialogue?