Many organisations are stuck in the past when it comes to measuring innovation.
According to a 2008 McKinsey Quarterly report, 13% of organisations rely on customer satisfaction with new products as their primary innovation metric. While this is an essential factor to consider, there’s so much more to successful innovation than customer reactions. To approach innovation as a genuine discipline and make it successful, we must look at all aspects of the process.
Let’s take a closer look at the shortcomings of relying solely on customer satisfaction with new products as an innovation metric.
For starters, relying on customer satisfaction with new products doesn’t provide insight into why these customers are satisfied or dissatisfied in the first place.
Is it because of something your organisation did or didn’t do?
Or was it simply something beyond anyone’s control?
As an organisation that is trying to innovate, you need to understand what went wrong or right so you can improve upon it in the future. Otherwise, you’ll go through the motions without making real progress – see our thoughts on Innovation Theatre.
Another problem with relying on customer satisfaction (or dissatisfaction) as your only measure of success is that it may already be too late to make any meaningful changes or improvements when you get feedback from customers.
You may have invested countless hours and resources into creating a product that isn’t up to par—and there’s no way to recoup those losses if customers aren’t happy with what they receive. That’s why organisations must adopt metrics that allow them to evaluate progress throughout the entire development process, not just after a product has been released into the market.
Looking only at customer satisfaction doesn’t tell you whether or not your organisation is actually innovating or just maintaining the status quo—nor does it give insight into how well your team members are working together or how efficiently they’re using their resources. For organisations to become true innovators, they must take all these factors into consideration and strive for improvement across all areas of their operations—not just in terms of customer reactions.
Relying solely on customer satisfaction with new products as an innovation metric isn’t enough for organisations hoping to truly innovate and achieve success over time.
To ensure your organisation maintains its competitive edge and continues developing high-quality products and services for its customers, consider adopting metrics that look at every step in the development process rather than simply focusing on the final results alone.
With this 360-degree approach, you will be able to identify areas where improvements need to be made so that you can focus your energy and resources accordingly—ultimately leading to more tremendous success for your organisation down the line!