Identifying Customer Needs
B&B for Busy Bodies customer

"You cannot manage a quality service organisation unless you understand the nature of what you are providing, fully realise what your customers want from you and how they perceive you from the start."

W.Martin: Managing Customer Service, Crisp, 1989

Once you have identified who your customers are, you need to assess what they need from your product or service.

Most customer needs can be divided into four basic categories:

  1. The need to be understood

    Customers need to feel that the message they are sending is being correctly received and interpreted

  2. The need to feel welcome

    Customers need to feel that you are happy to see them

  3. The need to feel important

    Customers like to feel important and special

  4. The need for comfort

    Customers need physical and psychological comfort

The Value of Knowing Your Customers:

By knowing who your customers are, you are more able to meet their needs.

Radio stations and television stations conduct regular market research to find out who their listeners and viewers are and often adapt their programs to suit the audience. Radio stations particularly have become niche service providers as they specifically aim their product at a particular group, or niche.

Think about the following questions in relation to your team (or company) or B&B for Busy Bodies™.

  • What is your service niche?

  • What are the characteristics of the service/s you provide?

  • Who are your clients and what do they want?

The RATER Model:

There are a number of different ways of categorising what customers want and value.

One of these is called the RATER scale. This is made up of five elements:

  • Reliability
    "Do what you say you will do, reliably and consistently"
    Relates to timeliness, consistency, regularity, accuracy

  • Assurance
    "I need to be confident of the knowledge and courtesy of your staff"
    Relates to competence, knowledge, respect, credibility, honesty, confidentiality, safety, security

  • Tangibles
    "Make sure your facilities, equipment, communication materials look attractive and are user friendly"
    Relates to appearance of facilities, staff, communication facilities

  • Empathy
    "Treat me as an individual, in a caring and empathic way; understand my needs"
    Relates to access to staff and information, clear, appropriate and timely information, individualised attention

  • Responsiveness
    "Be flexible and willing to help me; resolve my problems promptly and effectively"
    Relates to prompt service, willingness to help, problem resolution

activity

Try This

Click on the tool button, to open the RATER Elements table.

Using your own experiences as a customer and your

RATER Elements table

 

B&B scenario

experiences at work, write what you think are your customer's needs for each RATER element in the 'Your Customer's Needs' column.

OR

Use your knowledge of B&B online™ and B&B for Busy Bodies™ to identify their customer's needs for each RATER element. Write these in the 'Your Customer's Needs' column.

If relevant, consider your niche market and the needs of those customers.

Save your work as: Surname_CS_RATER_temp.doc to your Customer Service Portfolio.

 

Researching Customer Needs:

At this stage, you have only guessed what your customers want from your company. However, most companies have both formal and informal methods of assessing what the customer actually wants.

The following is a list of sources companies use to find out about their customers:

  • Letters of complaint

  • Warranty or insurance claims

  • Focus groups

  • Formal market surveys

  • Australian Bureau of Statistics reports

  • Staff surveys

  • Contacting the customers

  • Test marketing new products

  • Other

Not all of the sources are appropriate for every industry.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

B&B scenario

Review the information the company you work for has on your customer's needs and expectations.

Answer the following questions. If you do not know the answers, find out!

  • What methods does your company use to establish customer needs?

  • How often is the information obtained?

  • Are all customer groups included?

  • What needs were identified?

  • Do you and your colleagues have access to the information?

  • In what way do your customer's needs and expectations affect your company's planning and decision making?

  • What else is the information used for?

OR

For B&B online™ answer as many of the above questions as possible, based on the information you have available to you, including in the B&B online™ Intranet.

Email your answers to your Mentor for feedback. Name your email Identifying Customer Needs.

Then:

Open the Surname_CS_RATER_temp.doc document and add any other needs that your company identified that were not originally on your list.

Save the file to your Customer Service Portfolio. We will refer to this file again later.