The Secret Lives of Customers A Detective Story About Solving the Mystery of Customer Behavior

A "detective story" that delivers key insights for any businessperson asking the questions: who really are our customers, why do we lose them, how do we regain them?
Mogul William Goldman's zinger about the movie business - "nobody knows nothing" - can easily be said today about companies and their customers. Despite big data and a mind-boggling array of analytical tools, companies still grasp at straws when trying to understand who their customers are; why they buy their products and services - or don't; why they lose them; and how to regain them.

In an entertaining detective story, David Scott Duncan tells the tale of Tazza, a fictional regional chain of Boston-based cafes trying to go big time. The only problem: sales are declining at several key stores and they can't figure out why. The cast of characters include Cate Forrest, Tazza's CEO, Alex Baker, a "market detective," Jordan Sims, a young computer whiz at Tazza, and Ed Amato, the "Mayor" of Tazza-their most loyal customer-who has stopped visiting their stores. Eventually, Jordan discovers why the "Mayor" has fired Tazza, a revelation that leads to the "a-ha moment" that enables the company to get its ship in order.

Through this parable, Duncan shows that until a company understands why customers "hire" and "fire" them, they literally know nothing. Ending with practical tools to help anyone learn craft of understanding customers, The Secret Life of Customers will help anyone get in tune with what customers want, today and in the future.

David Scott Duncan is a Managing Director at Innosight, where he works with top executives to help them create customer-centric teams, strategies, and organizations. He is the coauthor of two previous books, including the Wall Street Journal Bestseller Competing Against Luck: The Story of Innovation and Customer Choice, written with the legendary Harvard Business School professor Clayton Christensen. A leading authority on the theory and application of “jobs to be done,” he has extensive experience conducting market investigations around the world. Prior to Innosight, he worked for four years as a consultant at McKinsey & Company and earned a PhD in physics from Harvard. He lives in East Greenwich, RI.