Tips to Avoid Demo Drama - Tip 3: Know your customer’s expectations

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During my 22 years of working, I have done both good and bad demos. There are, of course, a number of ways that things can go wrong. However, I have noticed one clear element that is always crucial for success: you have to know your customer’s expectations.

One of the most common mistakes that I have seen is in interpreting the customer’s expectations. Here are my guidelines for avoiding problems:

• Customer expectations come from the customer, not from you or your team. If someone in your team says, “They want this and that…”, always check this statement with “Is this coming from us or the customer?”
• Always use the customer’s definitions, not yours. For example, the term self-service does not always mean the same thing. I have come across several customer-specific definitions of the term. Never assume, always ask the customer how they define each concept.
• Do not speculate about the customer’s expectations. If you do, you will almost certainly decide that they want what you most want to demonstrate. For example: “They must be interested in this, so we should show them that.” Don’t speculate, ask.
• If you are not sure that you have understood correctly, then get in touch with the customer and ask them about their expectations. Sometimes this can be difficult, especially when several different people are attending the meeting. However, you should always be clear about the main reason why they want to invite you for a software demo/presentation.

What about if there are no expectations? Suppose you have asked the customer and they have said, “I/we do not have any expectations, can’t you just show us a general demo on…?” This might turn out to be fine. However, it is most likely that someone has suggested doing a demo just to make things more interesting. The problem is that just throwing in a demo without knowing about expectations can actually damage your credibility. I’ve done some very cool and flashy demos, showing my software at its best, and then someone in the audience has said, “We already have something that does this, and we are very happy with it, thank you.”

In this case, you have wasted everyone’s time. You may even have made yourself appear less credible because of your lack of understanding of their needs.

If you don’t know the customer’s expectations, it may be better NOT to do a demo at all.