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Understanding the context of the customer and their beliefs and values are key first step of innovation. To get to this kind of deep understanding you need to use ethnography and other design techniques. Qualitative rather than quantitative.
From Seth Godin:
Enough with the facts and figures and features and benefits. They rarely move people into action. It’s our worldview (the way we acted and believed and judged before we encountered you) and your story (the narrative we tell ourselves about who you and and what you do) that drive human behavior.
We make two giant mistakes as marketers:
We believe that everyone has the same worldview, that everyone in a group shares the same biases and expectations and dreams as everyone else… and,
We believe that the narrative is up for grabs, and we ought to just make the thing we make
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Read the whole thing.