What types of information should companies obtain from customers in order to successfully create breakthrough products and services? What types of inputs do they actually capture? In studying this discipline over the past 20 years, I have discovered that a significant discrepancy exists between what companies need and what they actually attain — and that surprisingly, generally accepted customer inputs are the hidden cause of many failed product and service initiatives.

Over the past two decades, it has become commonplace for companies to conduct customer interviews, company visits and/or contextual or anthropological research in hopes of uncovering the "voice-of-the-customer." These companies then use the statements made by customers as inputs into the innovation process. On the surface this approach seems logical, but it makes one fundamental assumption—that the statements made by customers are the inputs companies need to successfully innovate. This assumption is dead wrong. In fact, using these anecdotal inputs often causes the failures managers are so fervently trying to avoid.

The traditional customer-driven process is fraught with ambiguity. Companies meet with or observe customers to ascertain their "requirements." Customers — who are perfectly willing to share their thoughts — are unaware of what information the company really needs. As a consequence, they state their "requirements" in a language that is convenient, and meaningful, to them. Because companies are also often unsure of what inputs are needed, they accept the statements made by customers and use them as inputs into the innovation process.

These typically imprecise statements may then be "translated" by marketing and development teams to make them more useful—but opening these inputs to interpretation only introduces more variability to the process. In this article I define the types of inputs that are typically captured from customers — i.e., solutions, specifications, needs and benefits — and explain why their usage often derails the innovation process. I also introduce the three types of inputs that are useful — but rarely captured — to successfully grow new and existing markets.