Today’s customers want more of whatever they value the most. Consequently, today’s market leaders excel by:
- Selecting one component of value they will excel at.
- Continually raising customer expectations and definitions of value for that specific component.
- Structuring their entire operations to deliver added value in that component again and again better than any of their competitors can.
The modern consumer market is characterized by increasing expectations. For example:
- Price sensitive markets-Once upon a time, companies automatically increased their prices annually. That would be the course to oblivion today, however. If consumers value low cost, they now expect next year’s products to be even cheaper as better production and distribution technologies come on stream.
- State-of-the-art markets-Consumers expect the next generation of products to add new features that will amaze and dazzle.
- Time sensitive markets-Consumers now expect their purchase transactions to be short, efficient and accurate. They penalize companies that are difficult or mistake prone.
- Premium service markets-The premium service of yesterday has become the minimum expected level of service today. Consumers today paying for premium service expect the company to treat them as if they were its only customer, and bend everything to meet their needs.
- Product quality-Instead of viewing quality as an add-on feature, today’s consumers expect high-quality, low-cost products with features nobody has ever seen before to be released to the market on a regular basis.
In fact, there are four business premises that underlie success in business today. These premises are:
- [inlinetweet prefix=”” tweeter=”” suffix=”null”]Companies can no longer raise their prices as their costs escalate. [/inlinetweet]Instead, companies have to find innovative ways to lower costs to meet the raised expectations of their customers.
- [inlinetweet prefix=”null” tweeter=”null” suffix=”null”]Companies can no longer afford to provide anything less than hassle-free service to their customers[/inlinetweet]. Customers have now become conditioned to expecting effortless, flawless and instantaneous service.
- [inlinetweet prefix=”null” tweeter=”null” suffix=”null”]Companies should not fall into the trap of assuming good basic service is sufficient.[/inlinetweet] Customers are now demanding premium service — and their definition of premium is steadily increasing as well.
- [inlinetweet prefix=”null” tweeter=”null” suffix=”null”]Companies cannot compromise on quality and product issues.[/inlinetweet] Customers expect superior products that embody eye-popping innovations to be brought to market.
