The Difference between Needs and Wants
We have needs and wants, there is a difference, needs are always there, for example if your senses (e.g. sight, hearing etc.) are starved of input you will start to hallucinate, your brain will create ‘input’. People with some damage to their hearing often suffer from Tinnitus,. Sound is not getting through to the brain, the brain ‘compensates’ responding to what it thinks is sound information from the outside world coming through your ear. But no sound is coming through. The ear is damaged either by wear and tear caused by getting old or be sickness or excessive volume levels. The end result is you hear a constant rushing or ringing sound in their head. It is like turning up the volume on an audio amplifier but not connecting anything to the input…You NEED inputs to your senses.
The difference between needing to hear a voice and wanting to hear a song.
People wake up to sound e.g. the radio alarm, many people even work with sound, you can do several things at the same time when listening which explains why the radio is so ubiquitous. The UK regulator, Ofcom, estimates in their 2015 CMR that up 89% of the UK population listens to radio and, depending on your age, people spend between 20 and 3 0 hours per week listening to the radio in UK every week. I calculate that at about 1,000,000,000 hours of radio per week. You need to hear voices, other humans.
A want is a special kind of need. It is something that you would like. Maybe because your friends have it or maybe it is that piece of music you heard and can’t get out of your mind. You can think of streaming music service ‘Spotify‘ as satisfying a want, delivering the songs you want to hear and a humble radio as satisfying the need to hear something e.g. a person’s voice. All business is centered on fulfilling needs and wants. The NEEDS may be constant but basic, however WANTS change over time.
How to get to customer insights.
If you want to know what people need, ask them. But if you want to know what people want, watch them. What you are after are called ‘insights’, something a person wants but can’t articulate because they have never experienced it before.
As Henry Ford is supposed to have said (but alas it seems to be an urban myth), “If I asked people what they wanted, they would have said a faster horse”. Your customers will help you make your (existing) products better; they will not tell you how to make better (future) products.
Cautley Consulting 