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To bridge the gap between customer needs and how your product fulfills them, you'll need to determine:

1. 1 - What your customers want to achieve.
2. 2 - Under what circumstances they want to achieve it.
3. 3 - Why they want to achieve it.
4. 4 - What human needs are being met.

Jobs-to-be-Done Theory

A time-tested method to shed light on what your customer really wants is by applying the Jobs-to-be-Done theory. Jobs-to-be-Done is based on the idea that customers buy products and services to get “jobs” done and that these “jobs” satisfy specific physical, emotional, or social needs.

Check out Stan. He's buying computers, but what does he really want, why, and under what circumstances?

Although Stan the Stickman bought new computers for his company’s warehouse in Atlanta and main office in Tallahassee		what he really wanted was employees to work cooperatively, in realtime, as if they were in the same place.		Why? Because his company’s success was built on responsiveness and exceptional customer relations.

What needs to be done: Employees must be able to work cooperatively

Circumstance: They are miles apart

Motivation (answers "Why"): Stan wants to achieve consistent, high-quality productivity and responsiveness to customers

Human Needs: Security (financial), Esteem (respect of others), Achievement

Perspectives Gained from of a Jobs-to-be-Done Approach

You'll realize that you can be "hired" or "fired." When customers purchase your product or service, they’re “hiring” it to help them accomplish a job. If your product does a good job, the next time they need to do the same job, they’re likely to hire your product again. Conversely, if your product falls short of expectations, customers are likely to “fire” your product and look for another to take its place.

Once you start looking at things through the perspective of “what jobs do my customers need to accomplish and why,” it will be easier to communicate how your offering meets their needs.