Build an alternatives map around the customer's task and decision. Include competing suppliers, internal processes, manual work and postponing change. Compare each on the same relevant criteria, and label the strength of your evidence rather than turning assumptions into claims of superiority.
Begin with the customer's shortlist
Ask what someone considered the last time they tried to resolve the problem. Their shortlist may contain a specialist tool, a general spreadsheet and hiring another administrator. These options can appear unrelated to a product team while competing for the same budget and attention. Record the reason each option entered the conversation.
Include keeping the current arrangement. Doing nothing may mean accepting a delay, limiting service volume or asking experienced staff to absorb the inconvenience. That decision has costs, but it also avoids implementation work. If your comparison ignores those benefits, it can exaggerate the attraction of a new product even when every listed feature is accurate.
Choose criteria from the buying situation
Use a small set of criteria linked to actual consequences. An appointment business might care about recovering a deleted booking, handling a network interruption and training temporary staff. A feature count would not show whether these conditions are met. Ask participants which trade-offs they made rather than assuming all criteria deserve equal weight.
Define each criterion so comparisons remain consistent. “Reliable” could refer to availability, correctness or the ability to recover after a mistake. Split those meanings if they lead to different decisions. Leave a field unknown when the evidence is missing. A neat table full of guesses is less useful than an incomplete table that directs your next investigation.
Distinguish public claims from observed performance
Public documentation can establish what a supplier says it offers. It does not prove how well a particular organisation will use it. Date your notes, link the source and preserve qualifications such as plan restrictions or implementation requirements. Recheck material product details before relying on them in an external comparison because offers change.
Customer accounts provide another perspective, with their own limits. One unsuccessful implementation may reflect local conditions rather than a general defect. Record the context and avoid turning an isolated complaint into a headline about a competitor. Your own product deserves the same discipline: a working demonstration is stronger than a roadmap item, and a roadmap item should never be scored as an available capability.
Turn the map into a switching hypothesis
Identify where your proposed approach could create a worthwhile difference for the chosen segment. Then list what would have to happen for someone to adopt it: data transfer, training, approval and responsibility for exceptions. A difference that is valuable only after an unrealistic migration may not support a practical offer.
Choose a follow-up test that examines the trade-off. You might observe staff recovering an altered booking in their current process, then try the same scenario in a prototype. This produces a more useful result than asking which interface looks modern. Maintain the alternatives map as a dated research artifact; it should support a decision, not become a permanent ranking of the entire market.
Fictional example: why the paper diary remains competitive
A fictional scenario to explain the method, not a customer result or a market benchmark.
A fictional appointment studio uses a paper diary at reception. A founder assumes a reminder feature will make replacement obvious. Conversations reveal that the diary can be handed to a temporary receptionist, marked during a power interruption and corrected immediately when two staff members misunderstand a booking.
The founder compares the diary, a shared calendar and her prototype on reminder delivery, mistake recovery, access during interruptions and training effort. The prototype handles reminders but has no tested recovery path. She records that gap rather than awarding it an overall victory. Her next experiment asks reception staff to correct a deliberately duplicated appointment using dummy data. The comparison has exposed a concrete condition for switching. It has not established that the studio, or businesses like it, will buy the proposed system.
TAKE THIS INTO YOUR NEXT CONVERSATION
A practical next-step checklist.
- List alternatives participants have actually considered.
- Include the benefits of leaving the current process in place.
- Define comparison criteria in observable terms.
- Date public product claims and mark unknowns.
- Test a switching condition where your evidence is weakest.
Common questions.
Should I include a competitor customers have never mentioned?
You can include it as a research lead, labelled accordingly. Do not assume it belongs on the customer shortlist until you understand awareness, access and relevance.
Can I publish the internal comparison?
Review every material claim first, use current evidence and avoid unsupported judgments. An internal hypothesis table usually needs further work before it is suitable for external marketing.
Further reading & source context.
These primary references provide background. They are not evidence for the fictional example above and do not endorse AccelerateLink.
Found an error or a missing qualification? Send an editorial correction.
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