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Some years ago a major oil company was conducting research on a new design for milk bottles. Sound
strange? They did not make milk bottles but they had customers who did. They supplied synthetic resin used in
making plastic milk bottles and by helping their customers succeed, they ended up selling more plastic resin.
Their customers did not ask them to do this and may not even have been aware that they needed a new design.
Customer wants and needs may not be the same thing. It is important to know what questions to ask to find
out true needs of customers and those we hope to become customers.
The objective of this article is to identify, analyze, and better understand through research the needs and wants
of present and potential customers. The research should be based on customer surveys/interviews, customer
evaluations of products and services, customer service reports, sales and marketing data, general review of the
literature, etc. Dr. Deming often said the customers expectations are shaped by what we, and our
competitors, lead them to believe they can get. If we are not out in front giving them more than they asked for,
our competitors might do so and raise their expectations. We should always be working to delight our
customers and creating a situation where they enthusiastically boast about the benefits of doing business with
us.
Among the questions to be addressed are:
1. Who are our present customers?
2. What is their profile?
A. How are they similar and how are they dissimilar?
B. How do we segment them?
C. What new customers would we like to have?
D. How is their profile different from our existing customers?
E. What customers have we lost and why?
F. How is their profile different from our satisfied customers?
G. How satisfied are our present customers?
H. What are our customers saying about our service that we are not listening to?
I. What are the quality requirements of our major products/services which are demanded by our major
users/customers?
10. Which customers are more preferable and why?
11. How will customers make purchasing decisions?
12. What are the customers articulated needs?
13. What are the needs of the customer that he/she has not or cannot articulate?
14. What are the articulated needs of the organizations that are not now customers but whom we would like to
be customers?
15. What are their articulated needs?
basicbusiness
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