NPD Customer Laddering

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Question - How do I find out what my customers real needs, wants and values are?

Answer - The "laddering process" was designed by psychologist George Kelly to identify those needs, wants, values and attitudes which are at the core of our behaviour.

Key points

The process is called the “Laddering Process”.

If you try out this tool on yourself, the results will surprise you.

It gets very quickly to the heart of why you buy whatever product or service you have in mind.

The technique was designed by a psychologist called George Kelly who believed that we all carry around with us constructs about the way the world works.

Our most important (core) constructs are very dear to us, and we do not discuss them lightly. We are, however, willing to discuss those of our beliefs which we regard as low risk or disposable (peripheral constructs).

Kelly believed that these peripheral and core constructs are linked, and that you can ladder between the two, by starting at the peripheral constructs and asking why those constructs are important.

The two key questions at each stage are:

1. "Why is that important?"

2. "What are the consequences for customers if they do not have this solution?"

Taking a customer through this process should provide you with deep insights into their needs (click here for more details on the customer-facing tool), but this version of the tool is designed for internal workshops as part of a new product or service development process.

This tool can be bought separately here.

It also makes up part of our broader “Innovation” training e-package which comprises an e-booklet and nine of our new product / service development tools. To find out more, please click here.

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