Employ product-mix strategies to meet customer expectations: Using Customer Input to Design Winning Products Created by Alison Garrett, Debbie Pardue, Cara Midyette & Terry Deese

 The assortment of goods and services that a business offers in order to meet its market’s needs and its company’s goals. ◦ Includes product lines & individual products

Marketing Concepts Market: The group of potential customers who have similar needs/wants, sufficient buying power, and the willingness to give up a portion of that buying power in order to buy your product/service.

Marketing Concepts Target Marketing: Identifying market segments with the greatest potential for sales and focusing marketing decisions on satisfying the individuals that make up these segments.

Marketing Concepts Target Market: The group or groups of potential customers identified as most likely to patronize the business and buy its products. Sometimes, a business can take an existing good or service and change it so it will fulfill the needs of another target market. Example: some products can be altered to accommodate people with certain disabilities

 Customers buy your products because of the value that it can give them. ◦ They are not buying your product per se, but what your product can give them. ◦ They are buying the satisfaction of a want.  Customers have different motivations when they buy. ◦ Some consider price as the main deciding factor, often looking for the lowest available price. ◦ Others try to find ways to reduce cost and at the same time enhance revenue and improve quality.

 Customers will not buy a product if they don’t foresee receiving a positive benefit from it. ◦ A User Experience is the feeling that a customer gets when using a product. ◦ The User Experience is important because it often colours the user’s perception of the product far more than the technical features of the product do.  Businesses must find out what features they need to add to a product to produce the benefit a customer is looking for.

 The iPhone is not the most technologically advanced phone on the market (remember those reception issues?), but it provides the type of “cool” user experience that its target user values.  That “cool” factor, which has generated tremendous success for the iPhone, didn’t happen by accident – it was designed into the product.

 To compete in the marketplace, a business must develop or find products that will fulfill its customers’ changing needs and wants.  Obtaining customer feedback is a good way to evaluate how a business is meeting its customers’ needs and what it needs to do to increase customer satisfaction.  It is important that you know what customers consider most valuable about your products or services.

 Have a marketing person call on customers with survey questions. ◦ Could have a person conducting market study groups or hire an outside agency to capture company data.  These options can be costly snagajob.com  Document customer feedback. ◦ When a customer calls or s your company with positive or negative feedback, this information should be documented and stored in a database.

 Once you have a list, ask them again if you are indeed delivering what they want.  Use two questions – ◦ what does the customer value with regards to your products and services ◦ how well do you provide that value  Use of face-to-face interviews. ◦ Arrange for a series of informal conversations with typical individual members of your target user community. ◦ Don’t interview a group – you won’t get the same quality of input. ◦ Choose a comfortable setting to allow them to relax and share their thoughts without the distractions of their day-to-day responsibilities.

 A feature is a physical characteristic or quality of a product.  What products have. ◦ For example, say you sell an accounting software. You can say, “This accounting software has a reporting feature.”  It is something the customer can touch, feel, smell, see, or measure  It helps describe the product.  A feature answers the question, “What is it?” ◦ Ex: color, style, size

 Benefits — what features mean.  The personal satisfaction or advantage that a customer wants from a product.  It is how the feature helps a particular buyer  For customers, it answers the questions: ◦ How will I benefit? ◦ What’s in it for me?

 Prove to customers your product has features that benefit them  Customers buy benefits-not features  Compare to competition  Determine what each customer is looking for in a good or service Nike plus

 Salespeople should be able to explain these three types of benefits to customers: ◦ Obvious or apparent benefits ◦ Unique or exclusive benefits ◦ Hidden benefits

 Advantages that need little explanation by the salesperson.  The customer already knows the benefit ◦ Ex: Water repellant rain coat ◦ What is the obvious benefit?  Even if benefits are obvious, salespeople should still point them out and use them to prove the value of the product to customers

 Advantages that are available only from your good, service or business.  Is a selling advantage over your competitors  Ex: a car that “parks” itself is a novelty ◦ Offers a huge benefit to customers that have trouble parallel parking Ford Focus

 Advantages that cannot be seen or understood without the assistance of a salesperson  Ex: buying a pair of shoes ◦ You can see the color and style ◦ You can not see how comfortable they are until persuaded to try them on  Ex: purchasing a computer ◦ Warranties/24-hour helpline

 Step One: Find your product’s features ◦ Construction and materials:  What is the material?  Who makes it?  How is it made?  What’s the difference between these two items? ◦ Appearance and style  Appearance is a dominant factor in many buying decisions  Customers consider color, line, and design in everything they buy – cars, clothes, accessories, appliances, furniture, etc.

 Step one cont’ ◦ Unique or novel features  Having desirable features that your competitor does not have ◦ Durability  How long a product will last and give dependable service ◦ Product uses  What the product will do and how it can be used ◦ Service and warranty  Especially important when selling products such as appliances, electronics, and cars

 Step two: Know where to get facts about product features ◦ The product itself  Use the product and information provided ◦ Customers  Testimonials ◦ Manufacturer’s brochures and publications ◦ Other sales personnel ◦ Promotional materials  Product bulletins  Catalogs/manuals

 Step Three: create a feature-benefit chart ◦ After you know what type of information you need and where to obtain the facts about your products, prepare a feature-benefit chart  List all the product’s features, beginning with the ones that a customer or client will see first  List the less-obvious or hidden features  For each feature that you identified, ask, “what does this mean for the customer?”  Write each benefit beside its feature  A feature can provide more than one benefit

ProductFeatures (What are they?) Benefits (What do they mean?) ComputerVariety of modelsYou will be able to select different components to build a system that meets your specific needs Monitor sizeLarge monitors that come with these computers enable you to see the entire page. Gives a clear understanding of how the document looks MemoryThese models can be loaded with sufficient memory so your computer can handle any program Print capabilityHandle all your printing needs in your home or office