What is The Lead User Method

In order to maintain their customer base, many e-recruiting firms are in need of developing innovations. The Lead User (LU) Method has been heralded in the new product innovation literature but not yet applied often in e-service settings. Based on an e-recruiting portal, the authors compare new service ideas emerging from interviews with 60 registered applicants to the ideas derived from 15 so-called lead users. Whereas most users offered us social-network features they already know from other platforms, lead users came up with more novel service solutions for different user segments. From both type of users we learned that applicants are more inclined to re-use the same e-recruiting portal if it includes community and social network features for specified user segments, sharing a similar social identity supplementing offline ties. Thus, carefully specifying and treating differentially various user groups at the outset of an e-service innovation project is likely to pay off. This and other practical findings have prompted us to sketch implications for innovating e-recruiting services.