I've been reading The Daily Drucker, a book of insights from management guru Peter Drucker. Yesterday's insight is titled “Understanding What the Customer Buys”. Managers often make the mistake of thinking that what they think of as quality is the value that customers buy. Drucker tells us that a customer never buys a product but rather the satisfaction of a want. Different customers (or groups of customers) will have different wants; figuring out the wants is so complicated it can only be answered by the customers themselves.
One area that comes to mind when considering the implication of this insight is sales (and yes, we are all in sales). I have often experienced, from both sides of the table, sales presentations where the sellers launch right into a presentation of their qualities and “special processes“ without spending time to discover the “want” that the customer needs satisfying.
So, what do your customers buy?
BTW - go buy the book.