Customer needs analysis technique is used to identify those customers of the enterprise whose satisfaction is critical and to determine

what will produce that satisfaction for them. It is a way of communicating directly with customers of the enterprise to understand their viewpoint, eliminating misinterpretation and misunderstanding. Purpose The purpose of customer needs analysis is to identify the customers whose satisfaction is critical to the success of the enterprise and to determine their needs and what will produce satisfaction for them. This information is used in assessing the performance of the enterprises value stream(s). Benefits The benefit of using the customer needs analysis technique is that it provides a systematic method for collecting, distilling and prioritizing customer needs. It defines what will most satisfy the value stream customer by communicating directly with the customer. As the customers express their needs directly, there is no misunderstanding or misinterpretation of the customers viewpoint.

CUSTOMER NEEDS RULE Customer needs must be obtained directly from the customer, not from the perceptions of their needs. Members of the project team or management of the enterprise may believe that they "know" what the customer needs; however, this information is too often filtered, slightly altered, and unintentionally misrepresented. The customers must speak for themselves for customer needs analysis to be of true value. Customer Needs Guideline

Analysis of customer needs begins with an understanding that the value stream activities are a source of producing customer satisfaction. Understanding customer needs requires an understanding of the interactions of the customer with the value stream. Each customer interaction or event must serve to improve the customers' view of the enterprise and must provide the opportunity to exceed expectations. Identify the customer group who will provide the needs information. Schedule time with customers and prepare the survey materials. Use structured interviewing, focus groups, or survey questionnaires to obtain needs information from customers. The objectives are to: - identify the sources of dissatisfaction or problems; - gather customer suggestions for improvements; - increase team awareness of customer expectations; - provide input for performance measures and employee evaluation; and - increase customer awareness of the enterprise and its services/products. Collect customer needs information from interviews, focus groups or surveys. Regardless of the method used to identify the needs, document them promptly and in detail. Identify categories of needs based on the response from customers. Consolidate the identified needs, eliminate redundancies, and produce a final categorized list of needs for subsequent analysis. For each category, develop generalized summary needs statements that reflect all the statements in

that category. To check the needs summary statements, verify with participants that the summary statement encompasses the meaning of the original needs statements. If they do not, revise the summary statements to reflect the true meaning of what the customer was trying to communicate. The summary needs statements can also be recorded in columnar format, referencing the number of interviews that mentioned that particular customer need statement. This will help set the priority of the statements; the ones mentioned the most number of times should be at the top of the list of customer needs. The final product is a list of identified and prioritized customer needs that become the foundation for customer satisfier analysis. The icons in the example describe the evolution and possible deliverables, as the data is distilled down to a final set of customer needs.