Customer requirements
Customer requirements are reflected in the detailed goals constructed for various levels of the system. These goals should be regularly reviewed, monitored and adapted to the changing expectations of customers. For this reason, many organizations supervise the objectives and their implementation while managing system documentation. For specific and approved purposes, for their implementation to be possible, the management should provide appropriate material, financial resources, infrastructure and training.
Customer requirements influence development of quality products (to satisfy their needs) and directly influence demand for new and improved products.
Customer requirements should be communicated to all employees in the organization and in some cases also to suppliers. This can be done through the quality policy, the policies of individual processes, consideration in the construction of tasks, training and regular meetings. Knowledge of consumer expectations have an important meant for the company. The ability to identify and meet them influences the company's position on the market [1].
Understand the customers's needs
Many organizations are trying to adapt their operating model to the ever-changing demand. Modern technologies have created new communication channels. As a result, the company's operations are becoming more and more complex. On the other hand, new inventions make it easier for us to contact customers faster and provide feedback from them. This allows for the efficient detection of weaknesses. However, providing the customer optimal service requires more than understanding his needs and expectations. The company should adapt its operational model so that all its elements - organizational structure, division of responsibility, management and key skills - interact with each other to meet these expectations. Building a customer-centric culture and organization involves all human resources of the enterprise. Each employee should be aware of his influence on the client.
The ability to good understand the needs of customers is the basis for the functioning of each company and the condition for financial success. The best offer proposed by the company is that most accurately and most fully responds to the client's needs. Therefore, the ability to analyze customer needs is a basic skill that requires constant improvement [2]. It is expressed as:
- Ability to assess customer needs
- Ability to empathize
- Ability to achieve satisfactory compromises
- Ability to control emotions
- Ability to accept constructive criticism
- Ability to build positive relationships
Types of customer requirements
There are requirements that concern all products, called global (or general), and requirements directed to a given product or service (detailed). Global requirements are rather stable and better available. Specific requirements depend on the specificity of a given product or service.
The requirements consist of:
- needs - something that is hard to live without this, some basic conditions,
- requirements - sets of conditions that someone or something must respond to,
- expectations - assumptions, hopes and desires.
Their connection is the starting point in quality management systems. They allow to define goals and quality policy that guarantees the company's clients reliability and professionalism. With regard to the client, the need concerns the main value provided by the product, the requirements refer to its parameters, and the expectations - the manner in which it will be presented, sold or transferred.
Four levels of quality
Both in the case of material goods and services, the fact that their quality is directly related to the degree of meeting the consumer's expectations is of great importance. Appropriate quality is achieved only when the buyer's expectations are exceeded. Four levels of quality can be applied to services based on consumer expectations.
- Minimum service - a service that meets the minimum standards that must be met.
- Service deserved - a standard service that should be completed within a given price.
- Desired service - a service whose standard is the same as what customers want.
- An ideal service - a service with the best quality that the consumer can imagine and the staff to realize [3].
| Customer requirements — recommended articles |
| Job scope — Area manager — Service quality model — Quality policy — Quality management principles — Quality of work — CMM model — Personnel strategy — Development and organizational balance |
References
- Fredericks J. O., Salter J. M. (1995) Beyond customer satisfaction "Management Review" s. 29
- Hsin-Hung W., Shieh J. (2005) Using a Markov chain model in quality function deployment to analyse customer requirements "The International Journal of Advanced Manufacturing Technology" s. 141–146
- Kwong C. K., Bai H. (2002) A fuzzy AHP approach to the determination of importance weights of customer requirements in quality function deployment "Journal of Intelligent Manufacturing" s. 367–377
- Zanker, M., & Jessenitschnig, M. (2009). Case-studies on exploiting explicit customer requirements in recommender systems. User Modeling and User-Adapted Interaction, 19(1-2), 133-166.
Footnotes
Author: Weronika Cyganik
