If you don’t know what is most important to your customers, it is difficult to fulfill their needs and meet their expectations. It is easy to assume you know what your customers want and what is important to them.
The goal of a customer needs assessment is to understand what customers want and what their true needs are, which are sometimes different than their stated needs. The method of discovery, personal interviews, is limited because of the time and costs of conducting the interviews. Thus, a second phase is necessary when you have a larger customer base. In this case, the second phase involves conducting a broad-based assessment of your customer base to validate the results obtained in the first phase, the personal interviews.
There are many different ways you can do this:
- You can ask them
- You can get others to ask them
- You can ask them what they are
- You can ask them what they are and what they are so important when compared with the business objectives
- You can ask them to demonstrate and show you why they are so important
Once you know the needs you will need to assess them for business fit and priority.
Assessing clients needs using business analysis tools
Many things, such as legislation, relocation, a new technology, difficulty in resourcing or even just someone’s latest bright idea can trigger a consultancy assignment. Because the directors and managers bear the ultimate responsibility for the changes they are bringing about, they should not commission an assignment lightly. You need to assure yourself that you are and they are serious
Any structured approach will require the evaluation of the existing business. Analysing various of the business often performs this:
- Organisational analysis
- Strategic and business planning
- Data analysis (needs analysis and data modelling)
- Process analysis (business procedure and processes)
- SWOT analysis (internal strength, weaknesses and external opportunities and threats)
Organisational analysis
Organisational analysis in larger companies is often easier since records of job and person descriptions are often formally produced and maintained. The major problem would appear to be that they are not kept up to date and there maybe inconsistency in the records. In smaller companies, it may not be written down. However it is usually easier to find out what managers and staff do by interviewing them.
There are formal organisation diagrams (organ-orgasm) and also more informal organisation structures. It is the job of the business analyst to discover both. Information should be sought about reporting arrangements, information flows, appraisal arrangements and the span of commands.
Strategic and business planning
The analytical requires an understanding of the current business and strategic plans for the company or organisation. Again the degree to which this exists in written form will vary widely. Even if it is a documented, is it up to date or accurate?
The analysis will often reveal to managers that their business plans are unclear and this will provide them with an opportunity to update them.
A clear understanding of the goals and Critical Success Factors (CSF) is essential to justify future change programmes. Indeed, they should be used to test the value of any proposed change and subsequent programs designs.