Complete the common market assumption: Customers ________ ________ what they want.

• A. Know what they want
• B. Don't know
• C. Can determine quickly
• D. Often misinterpret needs

Answer: (B)

The idea being tested is that customers often don’t know what they want, especially when it comes to new or radically different products. People can describe problems or outcomes they’d like, but they aren’t usually able to articulate the best solution or conceive entirely new offerings in advance. That’s why many successful innovations come from exploring possibilities, building prototypes, and learning from real user feedback rather than taking customers’ initial requests at face value. A famous way this is summarized is the line attributed to Henry Ford: if I had asked people what they wanted, they would have said faster horses. So the best fit is that customers don’t know what they want. The other options imply a level of knowledge or speed of determination that this assumption doesn’t support.