Opportunity Scoring (Importance versus Satisfaction)

Definition

Score each customer need on two independent axes: importance (how much the customer cares) and satisfaction (how well existing solutions currently meet it). Plotted as a quadrant chart, needs with high importance and low satisfaction are underserved and represent the strongest product opportunities; the book quantifies this directly as Opportunity = Importance − Satisfaction, and the customer value created by an improvement as Importance × (Satisfaction-after − Satisfaction-before).

In the Book

Olsen walks through all four quadrants in Chapter 4, using Microsoft Excel as the high-importance/high-satisfaction case (a mature, well-served market with little room for disruption) and low-importance needs as simply not worth pursuing regardless of satisfaction level. The centerpiece example is Uber: the need to get from A to B is universally important, but taxis left it chronically underserved — dirty cars, rude drivers, payment hassles, uncertain arrival times. Uber's app addressed exactly those underserved dimensions (driver transparency, ratings, automatic payment, real-time ETAs), which the importance-versus-satisfaction framework identifies as the textbook high-importance/low-satisfaction opportunity quadrant that produced Uber's explosive growth. Olsen also shows the arithmetic on real product survey data, computing a specific opportunity score and the incremental customer value (0.14 in his worked example) created by moving satisfaction from 70 to 90 percent on a 70-percent-important need.

Why It Matters

This turns "which need should we address" from a debate of opinions into a two-number comparison that can be measured by survey and re-measured after you ship. Any domain that must allocate scarce effort across many candidate improvements — features, policies, interventions — can use the same move: separate how much people want something from how well it's currently being delivered, because the biggest, most durable wins live specifically where those two numbers diverge.