Understanding your customers begins by identifying their basic buying motives. While services and products are con-stantly changing, basic buying motives change very slowly. Understanding your customers also means gaining an insight into their buying role. The buyer/user decides what is needed, what will be bought and where it will be purchased. In other situations these roles may be played by different individuals. It helps to anticipate who has the need, who influences the pur-chase decision, and who actually decides what and where to buy. A business strategy that is squarely aimed at satisfying your customers’ basic buying motives will pay off ingreater sales, lower costs and higher profits.
To help you understand your customers, you will need information to enable you to choose the right services and products, determine the characteristics of your target market and establish the best ways to promote sales. After your business is established, you will need more information to decide where to grow, where to cut back or where to change emphasis. You are looking for answers to the following types of questions.
Who:
uses the service or product?
decides to make the purchase?
actually makes the purchase?
buys from me?
buys from a competitor?
Where:
is the service or product used?
do customers find information?
do customers decide to buy?
do customers actually buy?
are the customers located?
What: benefits does the customer want?
is the basis of comparison with other services or products?
is the rate of use?
price are customers willing to pay?
are potential sales for the service or product?
