10 questions for a Customer Value Audit.

courtesy Tom Fishburne. http://tomfishburne.com/2009/04/the-value-proposition.html

Customer Value has almost become a cliché, often trotted out to cover the lack of real marketing insight.

Effective articulation of customer value, and the business model and processes to deliver it remains  at the core of those businesses that find success. It is particularly relevant to SME’s as they must ensure their very limited resources are focussed where they can best deliver outcomes, they do not have the benefit of scale to absorb mistakes.

Following is a list of questions frequently asked in strategy sessions that seek to identify, and give form to this most elusive notion of “Value”.

1. Why do customers come to us rather than go to the competition?
2. What customer needs are currently unmet or under met?
3. How have customer needs changed in the last few years?
4. If we project forward two years and look back, how have their needs changed now?
5. What could our competitors do for our customers that we would like to be able to do?
6. Where are new customers coming from, and why?
7. Are there new competitors emerging that offer value different to ours?
8. To what degree does our concerns for customers welfare really drive our =decision making
9. What else could we do for customers?
10. What could we do to attract new customers?

Each of these questions can and should generate a great deal of discussion, the quality of that discussion is a measure in itself of how well you understand “Why” you do what you do, rather than just What and How you do it.

The really successful companies do not wait for  strategy session, they ask themselves these question every day, and the answers drive how they behave and interact with customers and prospects.

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