To my experience this is not specific to the car industry only. Many large business try to “ask customers what they want”, because “it’s all about the customer”. And while I agree that many large enterprises have ignored customers for all a long time, this new mantra is the right way either.
I believe a product needs to be designed deliberately to fulfill certain customer needs/desires. The word design contains the element of making choices on behalf of the customer, seldom by customers. I think has been very successful with this approach, even though some of their tradeoff decisions haven’t been so popular, but needless to say that their products are very successful.
Henry Ford said "If I had asked people what they wanted they would have said a faster horse".
Your job is to figure out what the customer need and sell them that. Sometimes the customer knows better than you do so you need to ask. However you have to beware of letting the customer jump to a solution. Figure out what their issue really is and you can revolutionize your industry. Give them what they say they want, and you take your chances.
Question is which customers are we talking about. Those who could afford a horse would have been happier yes, but I think Ford tapped into a whole new market
I believe a product needs to be designed deliberately to fulfill certain customer needs/desires. The word design contains the element of making choices on behalf of the customer, seldom by customers. I think has been very successful with this approach, even though some of their tradeoff decisions haven’t been so popular, but needless to say that their products are very successful.