Pharma company Pfizer solved the unaddressed problems of erectile dysfunction due to which the demands for its products increased, and it became a multibillion-dollar business. Growth comes when you have solved the unaddressed problems and enable a new industry to emerge for creating tremendous market value for your company.

Amazon has always been focusing on how to improve the lives of their customers when they shop. Any other company has never addressed some of those shopping-related problems before. Amazon tries to understand the needs of its customers and even tries to frame and address the needs which the customers, themselves, have not realized. They have always got the answers to all the industry questions and problems, like how does the customer get information on new products & services, how will the customer assemble the product, what is the reaction of the customers when things are not working, and so forth.

You may be already aware of personas that are used to learn more about the potential user and to understand his frustration and needs to a deeper level. In the design thinking process, building personas has been dominant, and it has even the potential to identify unaddressed problems. However, I have seen that it is still not used optimally. Many of the design thinking consultants focus mainly on the beautification of personas by etching a fancy user-profile canvas.

To create real value out of those personas, one can use the visualization tools to derive deeper insights from those persona’s profile data. A tool similar to an empathy map can help in understanding various things about the user. Such as how the user is feeling; does he have hopes to achieve his desire; is he worried about the situation; Who is influencing him in his social network; his attitude and behaviour, what obstacles he is facing to achieve his goals and so on?

You can create persona-based experiences for your employees and your customers. You can ask employees to list down what is collectively being done to address the lives of different types of customers. You never know, one day, Amazon could also become a real estate service company; a company which would improve the lives of customers when they have to buy the house (helping them in deciding where to buy a home or if it is the right time to buy a house, where to get the loan and how to find a good interior designer). Play can help you think about the areas which no other companies have considered, to venture in, and it can help you to find out the problems which no one has tried to solve yet.

Key Takeaways
Rather than focusing on beautification of personas, leverage the existing visualization tools or build your customized ones, like empathy maps to derive deeper insights from personal data, with a backdrop motive of improving your customers’ lives.