Who is your customer's customer?

It's easy to forget who we build our products for.  Often, we look at a feature and think of how we would use the feature.  Development shifts sideways and we end up with a well-engineered solution to a problem in our personal world.

But we are not the customer.

Other times, we focus instead on the wishes of our client's project manager.  We juggle change order after change order adding or removing features to build the ideal product for the client.  Development shifts sideways and we end up with a well-engineered solution to a problem in the PM's personal world.

But she is not the customer.

Ultimately we need to keep our eye on the prize: customer loyalty.  But who is the customer?  It's not us (the developers).  It's not necessarily the client.  It's the client's customer.

The person who will actually be visiting the website, purchasing goods from the website, producing content for the site, or consuming content from the site.  Understanding who the real customer is can be a difficult task for anyone; knowing who the customer is not is much easier.

I encourage you to take some time to produce user personas for the project's end customers.  What are their goals?  What are their pain points?  What is it they want to accomplish?

Once you understand the real customer you will be better situated to tell their story in a compelling fashion.