Listen to your customers. This is a popular business idea and has (somewhat) recently spilled over into education in the form of student-centered learning. While it is a sound strategy, you shouldn't just rely on customers for your user research.
In general, users will request more of what they already know. Don’t rely on inbound support requests that may skew the feedback towards a vocal minority of users. Outreach is needed to engage users who don’t have support problems.
Users don’t always know what they want. They may not see connections to related problems. And, users have a diffiuclt time describing their behavior (what they do) and this is more valuable than what they say. Sometimes users don’t know what they want until they see it. Take the case of Australian fashion startup retailer, Shoes of Prey. They fell victim to a gap between customer intent and actual behavior. Customers SAID they wanted one thing, but it was not backed up by their ACTIONS.
It is a good idea to engage potential customers because they will be more likely to provide critical feedback. Prospects are also a good gauge of your value proposition. Taking advice from customers could make you the market leader in a very small niche. Prospects can talk about their tasks holistically (see Jobs to be Done) and not just in relation to a particular product. This is also not usually critical and when they provide negative feedback it is usually microfocused like a software bug. They suffer self-selection bias because they opted to be customers and probably will likley champion the product to protect their decision. This feedback also tends to be microfocused and does not include
Bottom Line: User research should encompass existing customers and users who are not customers for a complete picture that includes future product directions.
