A few months ago, we talked about Jobs To Be Done and the 5 key elements you should be aware of when starting to formulate the JTBD’s for your own company. We made clear that companies should define the market they’re in from perspective of the Jobs that their customers are trying to achieve, not the current products the company is offering. Products are just a solution meeting a customer need. These solutions will be replaced if a better one comes to market. For the full article on introduction of JTBD, please check out https://cxunraveled.com/jobs-to-de-done/

Using JTBD can help you to move away from the current solution and open a new perspective and look for opportunities for new solutions. Or it makes it clear what current product features don’t give value to the customer’s Job.

But how to write your Job to be Done for your own customers?
Like with many CX and service design tools and concepts, we have a template for that 😉

 

When ____ (situation), I want to _____ (motivation) so that I can _____ (expected outcome)

 

JTBD can be used in every business context as well as in your personal context. We all have many jobs to do every day! Sounds busy? Doesn’t have to be, as long as you find a good solution for your job to relax at certain times, it will be fine!

 

Some examples make it more concrete:

 

  • When I am on board of a long flight, I want to be entertained so that I won’t get bored

The airline will try to find a solution to entertain their customers by offering free movies and wifi. Or they could also directly target the desired customer outcome (not getting bored) by offering some extra service and personal attention

 

  • When I move to my new apartment, I want to have energy supply, so that I can heat my home

 

  • When I received a new painting for my birthday, I want to hang it on my wall in my living room, so I can enjoy it every day while I sit on the couch

To hang the painting, customers will buy (or rent) a drill. Not because they want to have a drill, but because they need a hole in the wall to attach the painting. If new solutions like a very strong scotch tape, or self-attaching paintings will come on the market, customers won’t look for a drill anymore to hang a painting.

 

Personas and Jobs To Be Done

Personas let you step into the shoes of your customers. They tell who your customers are, what they do and what makes them tick and what doesn’t.

As you can see, JTBD start with describing a specific situation – the context – and pinpoints what is motivating / driving a customer for that specific job to potentially interact with you.

We think that JTBD are a valuable addition to personas, so that you can not only empathize with your customers but also optimize or innovate your current solutions. Our advice is to identify the JTBD specifically for every persona in each customer journey they have with your company to get the best result.

 

We hope this clarifies and makes you start using jobs to be done within your own company. If your job to be done in reading this blog was to learn how to formulate a JTBD for your customers, then I hope this helped!