• Functional jobs – Practical tasks the customer wants to complete (e.g., drill a hole, send money online)
• Emotional jobs – Personal feelings or experiences tied to the task (e.g., feeling confident, avoiding stress)
• Social jobs – Ways the job affects how the customer is perceived by others (e.g., appearing trendy, looking responsible)

1. Reveal Unmet Customer Needs

2. Improve Product-Market Fit

3. Inspire Innovation

4. Strengthen Customer Messaging

5. Align Cross-Functional Teams

At the heart of the Jobs To Be Done (JTBD) framework is a simple but powerful idea: people “hire” products and services to get a job done. But not all jobs are created equal. The JTBD method breaks down customer needs into three categories – functional, emotional, and social – to better understand what truly drives purchasing decisions.

Functional Jobs: Getting the Task Done

Functional jobs are the most straightforward to understand. They focus on the practical, outcome-driven part of a customer’s need. For example, when someone buys a blender, the functional job might be to make smoothies easily and quickly. In JTBD terms, this addresses the core task a user wants to complete.

Emotional Jobs: How Customers Want to Feel

Beyond the task, there’s nearly always an emotional layer. Emotional jobs reflect how a customer wants to feel while performing the job, or after it’s completed. Using the blender example, an emotional job might be the sense of pride in creating a healthy breakfast for one’s family, or the feeling of control over one's wellness routine. These emotional elements can significantly shape how products are perceived and chosen.

Social Jobs: How Customers Want to Be Perceived

The third layer, social jobs, involves how others view the customer’s actions. People may choose certain products or services because they signal status, competence, or belonging. A high-end blender brand might serve the social job of appearing health-conscious and sophisticated to friends and followers on social media.

By understanding these three dimensions, businesses can craft messaging, design experiences, and build products that address the full picture of what customers are really trying to achieve. It’s not just about what a product does – it’s how it makes customers feel and how it presents them to the world.

Whether you're improving a product or shaping your next marketing campaign, being fluent in this “language of jobs” lets you see customer needs in a richer, more human-centered way. That’s the foundation for unlocking better consumer insights and informed product strategy decisions using the JTBD framework.

One of the most powerful benefits of the Jobs To Be Done framework is its ability to reveal customer pain points that traditional market research might miss. By focusing on the “job” customers are trying to accomplish – rather than just demographics or product categories – businesses gain deeper clarity into the obstacles people face and where better solutions could emerge.

Uncovering Unmet Customer Needs

When customers try to complete a job but feel frustrated, make workarounds, or abandon the attempt altogether, those are signs of unmet needs – and also opportunities for innovation. The JTBD method encourages teams to look past surface-level feedback and dig into why people make certain decisions, what holds them back, and what they wish existed.

For instance, in a fictional example, a banking app sees high sign-up rates but low usage. By conducting a Jobs To Be Done interview, the team discovers that users “hire” the app to manage money on-the-go, but frequent login friction and unclear budgeting tools block that job from being done smoothly. That’s not just an inconvenience – it’s an opportunity to improve.

From Insight to Innovation

Rather than guessing what customers want next, businesses using JTBD can prioritize changes based on real, job-centered struggles. It’s a more effective way to guide product strategy and customer experience enhancements, because it starts with what makes life easier or better for the end user.

• Spot where consumers are cobbling together partial solutions (a sign of market gaps)
• Identify which steps in the customer journey feel confusing, time-consuming, or risky
• Find emotional drivers and anxieties that block progress
• Reveal how outcomes could be improved with new offerings – delivering delight, not just function

When used with consumer research tools, JTBD acts as a lens that sharpens your ability to hear the voice of the customer clearly. It transforms anecdotal feedback into actionable insights, making it a valuable market research tool that bridges what people say, what they do, and what they really need.

Ultimately, the JTBD innovation framework helps connect real-world problems with clear opportunities for growth – helping businesses not only solve customer pain points but lead with solutions that customers will actively seek out and embrace.

Ready to try the Jobs To Be Done framework, but not sure where to start? The good news is that JTBD is practical and adaptable. Whether you're in product management, marketing, user research, or innovation strategy, you can start applying JTBD thinking right away – even on a small scale.

Start with a Clear Customer Segment

Pick a defined customer group and context to explore. JTBD works best when you focus on a specific situation where a customer is “hiring” a product or service. For example, instead of asking “Why do people use fitness apps?” ask, “What job is a busy working parent trying to get done when they download a fitness app?”

Use Structured Customer Conversations

Interviews are central to the JTBD method. Keep conversations focused on customer behavior, goals, and struggles – not on “likes/dislikes” or product features.

Ask questions like:

• “Can you walk me through the last time you tried to complete this task?”
• “What made you decide to switch from your old solution?”
• “What was frustrating or surprising about the experience?”

This approach helps expose deeper motivations and challenges, revealing the true job customers are trying to get done.

Map the Job Journey

Once you have rich input, try mapping the job’s “step-by-step” journey. Identify:

• The trigger moment (what starts the job)
• The series of actions or decisions made
• Obstacles that get in the way
• The ideal outcome or goal

This journey map becomes a powerful visual for spotting points of friction – and areas where innovation could simplify or enhance the process. It also gives cross-functional teams – from design to sales – a shared understanding of customer needs.

Experiment and Iterate

You don’t need to overhaul your whole strategy overnight. Try incorporating JTBD insights into one marketing message, product tweak, or service prototype. Use feedback to learn, revise, and slowly build confidence in this model. By combining your existing market research with JTBD, you can strengthen your voice of the customer efforts across the board.

As a flexible market research tool, JTBD adapts well to both small startups and larger enterprises. Whether you're validating a concept or refining your product strategy, JTBD helps keep customer needs – and real-world jobs – at the center of decision-making.