5.6. Customer Analysis

A similarly crucial part of strategy setting is carrying out customer analysis and getting to know the customers’ needs. Relevant customer data which are both possible and beneficial to obtain are for example (Johnson, Scholes, 1993):  

• The customers’ needs – why they choose to buy a given product or service (sometimes customer needs can be of a more generic nature, not necessarily related to a specific product – i.e. personal aspirations, dealing with their current life situation or phase etc.)

• Their opinions on the quality of products and services which the company offers, suggestions on improvement – in general and in comparison with competing products

• How customers make purchasing decisions – what type of information do customers seek out when making their decisions or how important this information is to them – whether they search for this information, compare it etc., how customers obtain this information, when they make their decision, if someone and who influences their decision making etc.

• Their values and attitudes

• Lifestyle

• Other “hard” data – age, gender, income, geographic location etc.

It is advisable to obtain customer information both by systematically collecting data as a part of the company’s routine operations (re: marketing strategy), as well as conducting one-off surveys, which small and medium-sized companies can easily implement on their own.

When gathering customer information, it is imperative that the company considers how this data will be obtained, how it will be stored and analyzed, and how the company will subsequently work with this data (with regard to future use, costs, protection of personal data etc.). In practice, interesting resources have proven to be, for example, information from business networks (from sales representatives to other employees who come into contact with customers on a daily basis), aggregated customer information on the basis of information from internal databases, and others.

Customer information can also be obtained in one go, by way surveys which the company can conduct on its own if it lacks the financial means to hire an external agency. Surveys can be conducted easily and free of charge via online questionnaires (e.g. Google). In order to find out about customers’ opinions, other methods are also employed, such as individual interviews with customers, focus groups, and others.