Stop Asking for Features: Start Hunting for Problems

Customers are terrible at suggesting features but brilliant at revealing problems. Product managers who don’t hear those problems firsthand—and instead outsource discovery to AI dashboards, surveys, or sales teams—are flying blind. Success comes from discovering friction in the real world, not just crunching secondary data.

Listening for Problems, Not Features

When customers request a feature, they are almost always wrong. When customers identify a problem, they are almost always right.

Companies that win simplify processes, reduce frustrations, and create experiences that work for everyone involved. The key is customer discovery: deeply understanding needs, behaviors, and pain points through direct engagement. Interviews, shadowing, and observation uncover the reality behind the metrics.

AI has its place. It can mine reviews, summarize surveys, and surface anomalies. But problem discovery—the subtle signals, the body language, the muttered “this system sucks” at the checkout—is a human skill that no algorithm can master.

Discovery by Being There

As a product manager, I can’t not see inefficiencies. A rare trip to a retail store becomes a masterclass in what’s broken. Spend a few hours behind a register and you’ll see cracks no AI tool will ever surface.

Whenever I see friction—for the customer or the employee—I wonder: Where’s the product manager? Who’s validating this experience?

Here’s the truth: you can’t understand the customer experience from your desk.

Many companies fail to ask the simplest question: How can we make this better?

Lowe’s did. I returned a purchase, they scanned the box, and said, “We’ve refunded your card.” In and out in 15 seconds. Who’s loyal now?

Customer discovery—observing and engaging those who use your systems—uncovers friction points and turns them into opportunities for loyalty and growth.

Friction Is the Product Manager’s North Star

Where is the friction when buying the product? Where is the friction when using the product?

Amazon has made friction-hunting their religion. Every click, every return, every delivery is engineered for ease. Retailers who underestimate how much customers notice inefficiency are shocked when shoppers defect online.

Take Five Guys. They do a few things extremely well. Their app remembers your orders and payment preferences, making reordering effortless. I place my order in the parking lot and walk in to pick it up. Simple. Seamless. That’s customer discovery in action.

Product Leaders Listen for Problems

According to Bain & Company, 80% of companies believe they deliver superior experiences, but only 8% of customers agree.

Some companies send product managers and executives into stores to observe. Good start, but observation isn’t enough. Leaders must engage customers and employees—and then act.

Whether B2B or B2C, product managers should regularly embed themselves in customer environments. Not one-and-done, but continual. In The Unicorn Project by Gene Kim, a product manager’s firsthand experience revealed inefficiencies invisible on paper. The lesson? You can’t fix what you don’t understand.

Yet shockingly, many product managers admit they rarely, if ever, talk to customers. Without firsthand experience of frustrations and goals, how can they possibly advocate for them?

Customer discovery isn’t optional—it’s the cornerstone of impactful product management.

Two Leadership Mandates

1. Embrace Customer Discovery Understand every touchpoint and friction point in your systems. From delivery to onboarding to support and renewal, seamlessness is key.

2. Require Market Time Every product manager should spend a set number of hours each quarter observing customers. If they haven’t, they’re making guesses—not decisions.

Closing Thoughts

Retail inefficiencies may be as old as the hills, but they don’t have to stay that way. Companies like Amazon, Lowe’s, and Five Guys show what’s possible when discovery is built into the culture.

At the heart of product management is learning—especially by observing. Don’t rely only on AI summaries or filtered feedback from sales and support.

So here’s the challenge: don’t tell me what your AI dashboard says. Tell me what your last three customer conversations revealed. If you don’t have an answer, you’ve already got your next priority.