Know What Your Customers Value

If you attended the Service Hero seminar you may remember seeing the Dimension Attribute Map. This is an important learning moment and I don't want you to miss it. 

The chart (at the bottom) shows points of value to consumers with the Website being the least important and Reliability being the most important in the Food Service industry. In other words, food service customers value reliability, value (of the product/service), speed of service, staff characteristics, etc. more than they value product quality, location of the restaurant or cafe, the call center or the Web site. 

Why is this significant? Let's say you own a food service business, or your client owns a food service business. If you or your client emphasise the wrong "dimensions" of the business -- in other words, you invest money in your call center and product quality, and you sacrifice (invest less in) reliability and value, you are not investing in the business dimensions that food service customers value most. You're putting your money in the wrong places! 

What do you learn from this? First, you must determine (by your own surveys or by industry data) what customers in your niche value most. Food service customers are different from other customers, i.e. auto service customers, clothing customers, etc., so it's important that you measure customer preferences for your specific business or industry. 

Once you know what customers value, then you will know where to invest your money (or you can advise your client how to invest money) in the dimensions of the business. Unfortunately many businesses miss this value learning moment.