Free Opportunity Map Template to create value for your customers

Especially in markets that are already saturated or where competition is increasing, it is key to identify opportunities for differentiation. One way to achieve this is via a Blue Ocean Strategy, using the Strategy Canvas. However, this approach aims more towards radical innovation. The opportunity map however is a more incremental and customer-centered approach to focus your resources on the actual customer needs.

How to use the Opportunity Map template‍

1. Get feedback about customer satisfaction and the importance of your offering to them

Get customer feedback regarding A. how satisfied are they with each of your products and services and B. how important are your products and services in their lives. Attention: This is not the same!

Customers might like your service but they are not so important in their lives!

‍Customers could be really satisfied with your offerings but they only play a marginal role in their lives. On the other hand, customers might be highly dissatisfied with products that would play a key role in their lives. Therefore we need to go a step further:

2. Find out more about customer needs

Get customer feedback regarding their needs. It's not enough to just understand your users relation to your own products! To ensure that you are not missing some important needs your customers have, do some additional research. One great tool for this is the empathy map which helps to truly understand what your customer thinks, says, hears or feels.

3. Rate your products and services

Based on your inquiry from step one, rate the different products and services you offer, according to the average customer satisfaction (1-10) and importance for the customer (1-10). You might want to use a tools such as Microsoft Excel to easily calculate the average satisfaction and importance for your customers.

4. Plot your products

Now is the time to get to the actual template. Plot your products in the opportunity map by looking at the average customer satisfaction score and importance score for each product and service. You might want to differentiate between products and services by using different colors or you could also use different symbols for each product category.

‍5. Evaluate your Opportunity Map

Now you can see where customer needs are under- or over-served and define actions to be taken. For example, if one product scores very high in satisfaction (5 or higher) but low in importance (less than 5), this means that you don't need to put too many resources into developing this product. Keep the standard but use your efforts instead on products or services that are rated as very important. Especially if importance is high but satisfaction is low, you need to take immediate action!

‍Here step 2 comes into action as well. Are there any needs that your products do not fulfill yet? Use this opportunity to also figure out whether you should broaden your offerings.

Bonus Tip

If you have various customer segments, consider doing the same exercise for customer segments instead of products and services: which target customers are the most important and which ones are the most satisfied? Which customer segments are under- or over-served?