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Lesson #02 - CUSTOMER NEEDS AND EXPECTATIONS

Customer needs and expectations are important for businesses to understand. Customer needs refer to problems customers want a product or service to solve, such as punctuality for business travelers using an airline. There are functional needs, like transportation, and emotional needs, like feeling respected. Customer expectations are the perceived benefits and service levels a customer expects from interacting with a company and purchasing or using its products. Meeting or exceeding customer expectations leads to satisfaction, while failing to meet them results in disappointment.

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193 views3 pages

Lesson #02 - CUSTOMER NEEDS AND EXPECTATIONS

Customer needs and expectations are important for businesses to understand. Customer needs refer to problems customers want a product or service to solve, such as punctuality for business travelers using an airline. There are functional needs, like transportation, and emotional needs, like feeling respected. Customer expectations are the perceived benefits and service levels a customer expects from interacting with a company and purchasing or using its products. Meeting or exceeding customer expectations leads to satisfaction, while failing to meet them results in disappointment.

Uploaded by

Thomasaquinos msigala Jr
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
Available Formats
Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
You are on page 1/ 3

BASICS OF CUSTOMER SERVICE AND RELATIONS

LESSON #02

CUSTOMER NEEDS AND EXPECTATION

Introduction

 Business managers cannot manage a quality service organization unless they


understand the nature of what they are providing. They need to realize what their
customers want from their business and how they perceive the business from the start.
 Successful businesses develop their customer service strategies based on informed
decisions about customer needs and expect from the business. Successful products and
services in the market are developed based on what customer needs.

The concept of customer needs

 Customer needs refer problems that customer intend to solve with the purchase of a
good or service. Example,

Customer needs refer to a conscious feeling of deprivation in a customer. They are the things
customer requires to experience satisfaction. For example, in the case of business travellers,
the punctuality of a service constitutes a need. An airline failing to provide a high standard of
punctuality will lose business to its competitors.

 The products or services are then sold as a solution to the intended customer problems.
 Such problems could be difficulties in doing something faster, easier or more accurately.
They could also be bad feeling a customer has.

Types of customer needs

 There are two fundamental types of customer needs, namely:-


o Functional needs
o Emotional needs

Functional needs

 Functional needs are the basic human necessitates that are practical and needed for
survival. Example food, shelter, transportation, safety, etc.
 Functional needs pertain to performance of a product or service.

 Marketers develop product attributes that provide customers with functional utility
(benefits) as a solution

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BASICS OF CUSTOMER SERVICE AND RELATIONS

 Basic things

 Functional needs are also referred to as tangible needs, rational needs or physical
needs.

Tangible needs

 Tangible needs refer to those critical things a customer needs to solve his problem.
Examples, food, shelter, transportation, safety.
 Fulfilling these needs is often simply finding a solution to a problem. For instance, if a
customer need transportation, the question is to find out what kind of transportation
and how much? The solution might be a car or a bicycle.
 Tangible needs are also referred to as physical needs or rational needs.
 Tangible needs are centered on human body for its survival.

Emotional needs

 Emotional needs are centered on customer feelings. They are those things the product,
service, service provider, or the organization makes the customer feel. Such as feeling of
respect, acceptance, caring, fair treatment, safety, being valued, etc.

Customer expectations

 Customer expectations refer to the perceived value customers seek from the interaction
with the firm, purchase and use of the product, and services levels received in the
future.

Customer expectations refer to the perceived value customers seek from the purchase and use
of the product.

When going into a business relationship, every customer has perceived expectations regarding
his/her interactions with firm, purchase and use of the product, and service levels they will
receive in the future. Thus, customer expectations are the perceived benefits customers expect
from interaction with the firm, purchase and use of the product and the service levels to be

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BASICS OF CUSTOMER SERVICE AND RELATIONS

offered after the purchase. It refers to the total perceived benefits a customer expects from a
company's product or service.

If the actual experience customers have with a product exceeds the expectation, they are
typically satisfied. If the actual performance falls below the expectation, they are typically
disappointed and dissatisfied. For example, a hotel customer thinks that when they pay more
they expect more, if the hotel customer pays more and gets more, he/she is satisfied. On
contrary if the hotel customer pays more and gets less he/she is dissatisfied.

You buy a product; you expect it to work the first time. You go to a discount supplier, you
expect the quality to be less than the high end dealer, but you still expect what you buy to
work, first time every time. When it comes to products, expectations are pretty clear. People
expect a good quality product based on the price they are willing to pay for it. When it comes to
service, expectations can get a little fuzzy. When a customer begins a relationship with you he
or she already has a specific set of expectations. These expectations are based on their
perceptions of you, your company and your industry. They are formed through personal past
experience, and the experience of others with whom the customer interacts

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