With change comes opportunity and with unlimited change comes unlimited opportunity. The customer always demands the very highest quality for the very lowest price. Quality is what the customer says it is and is willing to pay for. Here-in lies great advantage!

Quality refers both to the product or service and to the way that it is designed, sold, delivered and maintained. Change creates opportunity to introduce a relatively simple, affordable product or service that creates access for customers who historically lacked the money or skills to get important jobs done.

Change offer opportunities to help customers do more easily and effectively what they were already trying to get done, instead of forcing them to change their behavior and “settle” for what’s available. In Michael Dell’s words: “Our entire business, from design to manufacturing and sales was oriented around listening to the customer and delivering exactly what they want.” With 800 numbers and the Internet, Dell created a strategy of mass customization, shipped directly, and bypassed distributors which cuts costs.

Every market consists of multiple customer tiers. At the high end are demanding customers who have high standards and the ability to pay for customized solutions. In this market customers are consistently willing to pay premium prices to trade up to new higher-performing products or services.

At the low end of the market are less demanding customers with fewer and less complex requirements to satisfy. Teenagers, college students and people in developing countries will accept performance imperfections when a new product or service becomes inexpensive enough to makes it easier to do something they could not do in the past.

Ever increasing customer service opportunities exist because as companies serving the high end introduce innovations and improve their products and services, they eventually exceed the performance that some of their customers can use. Demand diminishes and prices on previous improvements begin to fall.

Asking a new question can create new customer service opportunities. Do airlines want to own engines? No. They want planes in the air. An engine manufacturer started selling power by the hour. The real need wasn’t for the engine; the need was for reliable power.

The same customer service opportunity can look different to different organizations. Founded in 1976, the University of Phoenix seeks to reach non-traditional adult learners more cost effectively. It offered an on-line M.B.A. program in 1989 when one hundred fifty students enrolled. By 2004, it had more than 150,000 students.

Founded in 1754, Columbia University, started marketing expensive on-line non-degree courses in 2000. Columbia did not match the job lifelong learners hired education to achieve, and failed.

Remember, companies never succeed when offering people a worse way to get a job done. Capitalize on unlimited customer service opportunities by improving high end demand with customers willing to pay for customized solutions or capture the lower end market by enhancing lives of less demanding customers having fewer requirements to satisfy.

If you enjoyed this column you’ll love our Books (click here) and Training Programs (click here). Each is filled with hundreds of leading edge profit enhancing ideas from the best business thinkers in the world. This is one of over 300 columns published and part of the reason why The Wall Street Journal and The New York Times have called The DreamSpeaker™ about Business Planning Issues.