Beyond Customer Visits: Why Catalytic Customers Belong in the Mix

Product managers rarely suffer from a lack of customer contact. Calls, site visits, advisory councils—most teams have some version of these in place. They’re useful. They build empathy. They keep us grounded in real-world needs. But here’s the thing: they tend to circle around the customers we already know—the ones we sell to, support, or feature in case studies.

That isn’t wrong. It’s just incomplete.

Relying exclusively on existing relationships comes with blind spots. Those customers, however valuable, share certain traits: they’re invested in your success, familiar with your product, and often inclined to reinforce its current shape. That makes sense—they depend on it. What they can’t always give you is a view of what’s missing in the category, or where unmet needs are hiding just beyond your current roadmap.

This is where Catalytic Customers come in.

Catalytic Customers aren’t your reference accounts. They’re not drawn from your biggest deals or your loudest advocates. They’re deeply engaged in the category, but not tied to your brand. They bring experience, context, and an unusual combination of curiosity and constructive critique. They want things to work better—not just for them, but for anyone trying to solve the same problem. That focus on utility makes their input sharper and often more forward-looking.

When you include them alongside your customer calls and site visits, three things happen:

• You uncover what loyal customers overlook. Reference customers live inside your ecosystem. Catalytic Customers operate in the broader landscape and expose gaps you didn’t know existed.

  
  

• You get early warning signals. Because they’re highly engaged and paying attention, Catalytic Customers often see shifts in behavior or emerging pain points before they hit the mainstream.

  
  

• You expand the creative frame. Internal teams and core customers tend to converge on familiar solutions. Catalytic Customers reframe the problem in ways that spark better ideas.

  
  

This isn’t about replacing what you’re already doing. Keep the calls. Keep the visits. Just recognize their limits—and extend your view. Catalytic Customers supplement, complement, and, in many cases, surface insights that traditional feedback loops never will.

If you’re serious about building products that lead rather than follow, you need both: the trusted voices inside your orbit and the catalytic ones just outside it.