What happens when innovation occurs so fast that customers can’t keep up?
A while back, I wrote about all of the technology that goes into today’s new cars (see “Crashing your computer, literally,” 1/20/10). Well, a story from yesterday’s Wall Street Journal made me consider the same issue from a different perspective. Because rather than focusing on the blue tooth, blue ray, or GPS devices that are typically found in today’s cars, the WSJ story was more about the onboard computer systems that manage things like gas pedals and brakes.
Driven by the demand for energy efficiency and lower emissions, cars were equipped with onboard computers beginning back in the 1970s. Now, fueled by competition and cost efficiencies, the average vehicle seems to be more “high-tech” than horsepower. As we’ve seen recently, that has put auto dealership service departments in the awkward position of explaining complex problems to recall victims, “It’s not really a brake problem… it’s a software problem.”
Implications: What innovations have occurred in your products, services, company, or category… that you might take for granted and which consumers might not know about? Does part of your innovation occur so far “behind the scenes” that the customer is unaware of how a product may have changed?
When you’re so close to the forest, it can be easy to overlook small improvements that a potential buyer or product owner might like to know about. Perhaps by sharing more information about your innovation process, you would enhance the sales effort of your company as well as the confidence level of your consumer. And if, heaven forbid, something should ever go wrong with a product or service you provide… perhaps it would be easier for the customer to both understand the problem and accept the remedy.
On the other hand, there will always be those customers who don’t care about why something works… or whether a problem is caused by hardware, software or human error. They just know that when they step on the brakes, the darn thing better stop.
Mike Anderson
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I think we need to give more credit where it is due for the safety and precision our cars DO have. And I'm one who cares less about the why, than that it works, because cars are not my expertise. That said, my '10 Prius is scheduled to be reprogrammed tomorrow!
ReplyDeleteYou raise a good point, Rosemary. All of the recalls going on right now point out just how narrow the margin of error is... for an auto manufacturer, or for the rest of us.
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