Surveys and focus groups, as well as nontraditional research I. E. Ethnography, contextual inquiry, empathic design etc. Approaches to gain insight into their customers’ needs in order to develop highly successful products (desirable, feasible and salable). Unfortunately, most companies are still product-driven rather than customer-driven. The hierarchy of needs composed of five levels from the bottom – biological/physiological, safety, belongingness & love, esteem, self-actualization.
However, customers are usually not very good at expressing higher level needs. Needs are What’ Is desired by customers, whereas attributes, features, requirements, and specifications are ‘how a need Is satisfied by a specific product/service, while products characteristics are rather quantitative but attributes are more abstract and are based on the perceptual dimensions that consumers use to make purchase decisions. Requirements are the technical solutions to meet a customers need, and specifications are the specific metrics associated with requirements.
Note that in some cases, all of terms mentioned can either refer to the same thing, or capture different information about what customer really desires. There are at least three levels of customer needs that are increasingly more abstract in scope: Features, are often the words described by consumers, and are concrete, short-term in nature, and easy to influence. Incremental changes only result from focusing on new products with improved features. Consequences come from possession and/or use of the product or service and are frequently more emotional in nature.
Designing new products to satisfy consequences often leads to more creative and novel changes in existing products. Desired end-state are the customers underlying purposes and goals, and can result in creative and radical changes because customer-oriented product-market structures may be very different from traditional industry defined competitive boundaries. The voice of the customer (VOCE) and quality function deployment (SF) enable cross-functional communication, and ensure the development of highly successful products.
The VOCE identifies a research of customer needs where each need is prioritize. It is then translated into requirements and product specs, and even further into specific attributes. Kane Model of Customer Satisfaction suggested that the development team had to develop a deep understanding of customers’ real (latent) needs. The horizontal axis Indicated the degree customers need is addressed, and the vertical axis Indicated customer’s satisfaction for a specific implementation of a need.
This model categorized Into three different customer needs – basic, performance and exciting. The underlying concept Is that the exciting need today will migrate to being a performance need and will end up a basic need tomorrow. The current theory and practice Involves Identifying articulated (what customers say) and unarticulated (what customers do and make) needs. In all cases, customer Voice’ must be translated Into a hierarchy of needs, and the challenge will be to Integrate the cross-fertilization of customer needs research across multiple disciplines.
Understanding Customer’s Need By scholarship Understanding Customer Needs vive levels from the bottom – biological/physiological, safety, belongingness & love, expressing higher level needs. Needs are What’ is desired by customers, whereas attributes, features, requirements, and specifications are ‘how a need is satisfied by a specific product/service, while products characteristics are rather quantitative but solutions to meet a customer’s need, and specifications are the specific metrics customer’s underlying purposes and goals, and can result in creative and radical a deep understanding of customers’ real (latent) needs.
The horizontal axis indicated he degree customer’s need is addressed, and the vertical axis indicated customer’s satisfaction for a specific implementation of a need. This model categorized into concept is that the exciting need today will migrate to being a performance need and will end up a basic need tomorrow. The current theory and practice involves identifying articulated (what customers say) and unarticulated (what customers do and make) needs. In all cases, customer Voice’ must be translated into a hierarchy of needs, and the challenge will be to integrate the cross-fertilization of customer needs
