The Jobs to Be Done (JTBD) framework is a way of understanding customers based on the 'jobs' they are trying to accomplish, rather than just who they are. Rooted in innovation theory and popularized by thought leaders like Clayton Christensen, this approach shifts the focus from traditional market segments (like age or income) to specific goals or challenges a person is trying to solve in their life.

At its core, JTBD asks: What is the customer hiring this product or service to do? Just like a company ‘hires’ an employee to do a job, people 'hire' products to meet a need or complete a task. That task may be functional (like getting from home to work quickly), emotional (feeling more confident in social settings), or social (being perceived a certain way by peers).

Why JTBD Matters in a Customer-Centric World

Understanding customer needs is critical to meaningful product strategy, market research, and business growth. The JTBD framework helps businesses make better decisions by uncovering why customers really buy – insights you can’t always get from demographic analysis alone.

Traditional research might tell you your target audience is 35-45 years old and lives in urban areas. But JTBD tells you they’re looking for a better way to eat lunch while working remotely because they’re juggling tight deadlines. This deeper insight empowers more relevant product development, messaging, and experience design.

Benefits of the JTBD Framework:

• Deeper customer insights: Focuses on goals, not just attributes.
• Supports business innovation: Reveals unmet needs and opportunity areas.
• Cross-industry relevance: Useful across consumer goods, tech, finance, healthcare, and more.
• Aligns teams: Creates shared understanding between marketing, product, and leadership.

With consumer expectations changing rapidly, understanding customers through the JTBD lens is one way businesses can adapt faster and innovate with purpose. Instead of assuming why someone interacts with your product, you’ll understand the job they’re trying to complete – and can optimize your offering accordingly.

At SIVO Insights, we’ve seen how this approach can support more focused research, stronger product decisions, and greater confidence in growth strategies. And while the JTBD framework is powerful on its own, it can also be integrated with other qualitative and quantitative research tools to deliver a complete view of your consumers.

Identifying your customers’ real needs using the JTBD framework starts with a mindset shift. It’s not just about what customers buy, but what they’re trying to get done when they make that purchase. This allows you to go beyond surface-level preferences and uncover the motivations driving behavior.

Start with Observation and Empathy

Observing people in real-life contexts, or conducting interviews that explore situations, motivations, and outcomes, is the most effective way to discover jobs. The goal is to understand the full story: what led someone to seek a solution, what they were hoping for, and how they evaluated alternatives.

Ask Simple, Open-Ended Questions Like:

• What were you trying to do when you decided to use this product?
• What was frustrating about your previous options?
• What outcome were you hoping for?
• Why was this moment important to you?

This line of inquiry helps reveal the context behind decisions, illuminating not just functional goals, but emotional and social drivers as well. You can also identify “trigger events” – key moments that push someone to seek a new solution.

Break It Down into Clear Jobs

Once you gather insights, organize them into individual jobs-to-be-done. These are usually phrased as:

“Help me [do something] so that I can [accomplish something else].”

For example, a fictional e-learning company might uncover a job like:

“Help me learn presentation skills quickly so I can feel more confident in my new role.”

This job reveals both the functional goal (learning quickly) and the emotional driver (building confidence). That dual understanding can inspire features, marketing messages, and even customer support strategies that serve the real need — not just the request.

Simplify and Prioritize Jobs

Not all jobs are created equal. As you uncover multiple jobs, look for patterns and prioritize the ones that are most frequent, most painful, or offer the largest opportunity to differentiate.

Ask yourself:

• Which jobs are underserved by current solutions?
• Which jobs closely align with our strengths and brand?
• What’s the cost of failure for the customer in not completing this job?

At this stage, analysis methods like segmentation or quantitative surveys can be paired with the JTBD insights to validate priorities across larger audiences.

Why It Works

By focusing on the job instead of the customer profile, you’re aligning your business strategy to where value exists — solving a real problem. Whether you’re designing a new product, crafting messaging, or improving service offerings, jobs-to-be-done provides the foundation for stronger, more relevant decisions.

Understanding customer needs with JTBD isn't just a research tool – it’s a mindset that helps everyone in your business think more deeply and act more strategically. At SIVO, we help teams turn these insights into action, combining the JTBD method with broader consumer insight strategies to unlock growth in a human-centered way.

How to Implement the Jobs to Be Done Framework

Applying the Jobs to Be Done (JTBD) framework might sound complex at first, but the process becomes clear once broken into manageable steps. Whether you’re launching a new product or revising your current strategy, this approach helps you understand customers at a deeper level – not just what they buy, but why they buy it. Here's a beginner-friendly, step-by-step guide to using JTBD in your business decisions.

Step 1: Identify the Real-World 'Job'

Start by looking beyond demographics and ask: What is the progress the customer is hiring a product or service to make? This job might be functional, emotional, or social. For instance, someone buying noise-canceling headphones may not just want to block sound – they may be trying to focus during long flights or manage anxiety in noisy spaces.

Step 2: Conduct Qualitative Customer Interviews

To uncover these jobs, speak directly with users. Open-ended interviews help reveal motivations, struggles, and triggers behind a purchase. Ask questions like:

• What was happening in your life when you started looking for a solution?
• What alternatives did you consider?
• What made you choose this product/service?

This step provides rich consumer insights that form the foundation of JTBD analysis.

Step 3: Map the Job Journey

Once the job is clear, map out the steps a customer takes to complete it – from recognizing a need to evaluating options to achieving the desired outcome. This helps identify where pain points or unmet needs exist along the journey.

Step 4: Categorize Jobs and Prioritize

Not all jobs are equal. Some are essential, others are situational. Group recurring themes into categories like:

• Core jobs – fundamental tasks the customer needs accomplished
• Related jobs – tasks that support or complement the core job
• Emotional jobs – why customers care so deeply about the experience

Prioritize based on frequency, urgency, or opportunity for innovation.

Step 5: Align Product Strategy to Job Insights

Now you can tailor your product development, messaging, and user experience to better serve the identified jobs. This step ensures your business strategy aligns with real customer needs, not just assumptions or surface-level data.

This structured method of understanding customer needs with JTBD leads to more clear, thoughtful, and relevant innovation. When implemented properly, your product becomes the best “hire” for that job – giving you a competitive edge rooted in real consumer behavior.

For leaders new to market research, JTBD is a powerful path to designing smarter, more customer-centric solutions.

Why the JTBD Method Drives Smarter Business Decisions

Understanding customer needs through the Jobs to Be Done framework does more than fuel product development – it can transform how your organization approaches innovation, marketing, and user experience design. Here's how applying JTBD insights leads to business growth across industries.

1. Product Strategies Built Around Purpose

When your product strategy is designed around user needs rather than just features, customers see your product as a solution to their problem – not just one of many options. JTBD guides you toward functionality that aligns with the way people naturally think and act. This results in products that are not only useful, but meaningful.

2. Breakthrough Innovation Opportunities

JTBD uncovers white space – areas where customer problems are not being fully addressed. These unmet or underserved jobs often represent your biggest growth opportunities. By identifying these gaps, businesses can develop innovative offerings that serve a specific job better than the competition.

For example, a fictional meal delivery startup might discover their customers aren’t just trying to “get food quickly” – they're also trying to “avoid decision fatigue after work.” That revised job insight can inspire curated menus, personalized suggestions, or mood-based meal planning features.

3. More Effective Marketing Campaigns

Rather than guessing what messaging will resonate, JTBD insights give your marketing team clarity on what truly matters to users. Brand stories, ad copy, and positioning can all be built around the emotional or functional job your solution performs – leading to better engagement and conversion.

4. Customer-Centric Roadmapping

JTBD insights act as a compass for team alignment. Product managers, designers, marketers, and even customer support teams can all anchor their strategies in the same set of user needs – ensuring a more consistent and focused roadmap that serves the end customer over time.

5. Lower Risk, Higher ROI

By designing with clearer user intent in mind, businesses reduce the risk of building features or entire products that miss the mark. You're better equipped to test, validate, and prioritize based on how closely a solution fits the job-to-be-done – minimizing waste and increasing returns from development investments.

Ultimately, using JTBD for market research gives businesses a more precise, human-centered lens to guide decision-making. Whether you’re launching a new service or refining an existing offer, the JTBD method keeps your focus where it matters most: delivering real value based on real consumer needs.

Choosing the Right Approach to Understand Customers

The Jobs to Be Done framework is a powerful addition to your market research toolkit – but it’s not always the best fit for every situation. Knowing when to use JTBD versus other methods helps ensure you’re collecting insights in the most effective way possible for your business goals.

When JTBD Is a Strong Fit

JTBD shines when you're trying to understand the deeper motivations behind customer behavior, especially when you're:

• Exploring a new product or service idea
• Trying to boost adoption or solve low engagement
• Pivoting your go-to-market strategy
• Identifying new segments to serve
• Reframing how your brand creates value

Because JTBD focuses on situations, struggles, and goals, it’s ideal when decisions require thorough context – not just stats like age or income level.

When Other Market Research Methods May Be Better

That said, there are times when different tools may be more efficient or better aligned with your research objectives. For example:

• Quantitative surveys are more useful when you want to measure preferences across larger samples to validate trends or size markets.
• Ethnographic research is better when observational behavior is key – such as how people use products in their homes or stores.
• Brand tracking studies are best used to monitor awareness and perception over time.

At SIVO Insights, we often use JTBD in combination with other methods as part of a layered strategy. For instance, JTBD interviews might inform a quantitative study that validates how widely a specific “job” is shared across your consumer base.

Pairing JTBD With Other Tools

The strength of JTBD lies in its depth of understanding – not just what customers say, but the context surrounding their decisions. Pairing this method with wider market research allows you to move from insights to action with confidence, clarity, and scale.

In sum, JTBD is a highly valuable approach for surfacing the “why” behind decisions. Use it when your business challenge calls for empathy, context, and innovation – and pair it with other methodologies when you also need breadth, testing, or measurement.