Customers want products, services, and fair value

According to The American Customer Satisfaction Index (ACSI), the world’s most comprehensive assessment of customer sentiment, customer satisfaction today is far lower than a decade ago.

What do your customers really want? What they really want are quality products, reliable services, and fair value for their money. They seldom purchase a product or service because it offers something unique.

If the customer is king, they often don’t feel very regal. Ask almost anyone about their latest customer nightmare experience. The situations are endless and include even our best, most admired, companies.

What customers want are products or services that are simply better, not more differentiated. Just like you and I, customers usually choose brands that they expect to meet their basic needs somewhat better or more conveniently than the competition. Let’s look at the volatile toothpaste market. In 1990 Crest owned a 30 percent U.S. market share with its anti-cavity campaign. Next was Colgate. Then Unilever launched Mentadent in 1993, combining baking soda and peroxide, two ingredients long associated with dental hygiene. Two years later, Mentadent captured a 12 percent market share.

In 1997 Colgate Total claimed to offer everything, great taste, fresh breath, whitening ingredients and dental health. When combined with fluoride, Triclosan helped prevent tooth decay, plaque, and gingivitis.

Colgate’s success was not based on a single unique differentiator; it was based on providing what the market saw as the best overall package of category benefits. Within four years Colgate became the new market leader with 37 percent.

Patrick Barwise and Sean Meehan in Simply Better state: “Branding and emotional values are great, but only if you already provide an excellent functional product or service. Outside the box strategy is terrific, when it works. But because even some of the best organizations are performing badly on the basics, it’s essential to start inside the box, ensuring that you reliably meet customers’ reasonable expectations on the product or service itself.”

Many businesses fail to listen to their customers and forget to deliver on the basics. What needs to be done is to get back to the basics of good service, quality products, and on-time delivery.

Barwise and Meehan state; “Meeting someone else’s needs rather than one’s own goes against human nature, especially if the other person is complaining about our effort to satisfy them. It requires effort, as well as empathy and imagination, to overcome this barrier.”

People in organizations often have little incentive to make this effort. A customer-focused business involves a combination of high employee morale, good systems, customer insights and a supportive culture.

To the business, the only thing that matters is the brand: How many sales? At what price? To the customer, the only thing that matters is the product or service: Does it meet my needs? Is it available? At what price? Long-term success results from a clear understanding of what the customer wants, in good times and bad. Being better is a never-ending story. Research shows that customers rarely buy a brand because it offers a unique feature or benefit.

Customers buy the brand they perceive as offering the best overall combination of quality products, reliable services, and fair value for their money.

This article is provided by Joe Murtagh, “The DreamSpeaker™” www.TheDreamSpeaker.com. For keynotes, facilitation, workshops, consulting and questions or or a free report on The 3 Most Common Mistakes Organizations Make, email us at Joe@TheDreamSpeaker.com or call 800-239-0058.

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