Devoted to customer service and the principles of exceptional customer services

You are right. You need to know your customers (and potential customers). Occasionally random innovation will work (this seems cool who knows how it will pay off but lets do it). But most often successful innovation is guided by an understanding of the market. But that doesn't mean that you customers know what they need. You need to know them and know what is possible and give them things they don't think of. See: Deming on Innovation.

John,

Thanks for pointing out the thoughts of Deming....very thought-provoking. There are some industries that can benefit from customer help with innovation, but yes, sometimes the customers simply don't know what they want.

Customers are the source of innovative ideas. They are the ones doing the buying of solutions. But you don't ask them what they need; you ask them what they do and the results they expect from doing it. It's this understanding of how the customer works that will not only trigger ideas from their suppliers - leading to innovations when combined their expertise in technology etc., - but also, but with properly framed questions, trigger the customer to think of ideas that can be fed back to their suppliers.

It's not as simple as customer focus or innovation. They are highly related. Today's customers may be "clueless" about what solutions are viable and they may even be "clueless" about the "problems" they face but they can answers questions that are related to both. It's up to the customer focused innovator to "get a clue" through proper investigations.

Added this is the fact that customers think of themselves as unique with unique needs. How are these unique needs going to be found without asking customers about them?

Also, keep in mind, innovation can be a small improvement, not just a big new product.