How Early-Stage Voice of Customer Drives Innovation at Watts Water
October 05, 2026
In a recent insightful webinar, Steve Hansen, Partner at Phase 5, sat down with Jason Koravos, Head of Product Engineering at Watts Water Technologies, to discuss the transformative power of early-stage Voice of Customer (VOC) research. Their conversation explored how engaging directly and early with end-users fundamentally shifts product development from an exercise in cost-reduction to a driver of true innovation and market success.
When Jason joined Watts Water, he brought a unique perspective shaped by his early career. Previously, he managed a niche insulation product with only a few dozen global customers, which allowed him to interact with every end-user personally. At Watts, however, the customer base numbered in the hundreds of thousands, and product feedback traditionally flowed through layers of manufacturers' representatives and distributors.
While these sales channels provide valuable market input, they inherently carry a sales-focused bias. Feedback filtered through this lens typically centers on making products cheaper, faster to produce, and easier to sell. This operational focus often drowns out the deeper, systemic needs of the actual end-users installing and maintaining the products.
Embracing Early-Stage, Unbiased VOC
To bridge this gap, Watts Water partnered with Phase 5 to implement early-stage VOC research (Voice of the Customer). A critical element of this strategy is conducting “blind” interviews (i.e., not revealing that Watts commissioned the research). Because the interviewees do not know which manufacturer is asking the questions, a significant layer of bias is removed from the conversation.
Instead of simply asking how to improve a specific valve (valves are one of the flagship product categories of Watts), the research focuses on the Jobs-to-Be-Done (JTBD) framework. Engineers and product managers listen in as contractors describe their day-to-day challenges, the environments they work in, and the broader systems surrounding the products. This system-level view frequently upends the internal team's assumptions, revealing that factors like safety might take precedence over simple material costs.
A Real Case: the USGCS Valve
The real proof of this approach’s efficacy lies in the recent launch of the USGCS under-sink mixing valve. Watts previously dominated this space with a patented 4-port valve, but when the patent expired in 2021, competitors quickly flooded the market with identical products.
To develop the next generation, Watts turned to Phase 5's VOC research to identify valuable new features. The interviews revealed two major pain points that internal teams hadn't fully prioritized: clogged strainers that couldn't be easily serviced and the nightmare of identifying cross-flow failures in buildings with hundreds of valves.
In direct response to this feedback, Watts engineers designed the USGCS with a maintainable strainer and check valve cartridge, plus innovative temperature-sensing, color-changing plugs that visually indicate cross-flow issues. These VOC-driven innovations had an immediate impact. The new product won industry awards, and current orders are already significantly outperforming the previous year's metrics.
Accelerating the Stage-Gate Innovation and Product Development Process
One might assume that adding research phases would slow down product development. However, Jason highlighted that early-stage VOC actually accelerates Watts' internal stage-gate approval process. Gate two is the critical juncture where the product team asks leadership for full development funding. Bringing actual audio clips and transcripts of end-users directly into these meetings proves exactly why a product is needed, preventing projects from being rejected and delayed for months.
The webinar made one thing abundantly clear: while sales feedback is important, it cannot replace the raw, unfiltered voice of the end-user. Integrating direct customer insights early in the design process helps companies like Watts Water not just make cheaper parts, but solve real-world problems and build products the market truly values.
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Author: John Pickering
John Pickering is an Account Manager with Phase 5. Formerly with the firm's Customer Experience team, John is passionate about all things marketing but more specifically, about finding ways to bridge the gap between companies' products and services and their customers. He has comprehensive experience analysing both quantitative and qualitative data and putting that data into actionable results. He has leveraged this knowledge to win the 2021 Michel Cloutier Marketing Competition Award. John holds a Bachelors of Commerce; Concentration in Marketing from The University of Ottawa.