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Customer Insight / Value Determination
Every company claims that they pay attention to their customers. This claim has at least some merit for any company that is in business. However, EMG has found that there are relatively few companies that have invested the time and effort to truly understand what their customers value in doing business with them or their competitors. Therefore, EMG has developed a proprietary methodology for helping our clients develop a data-driven, structured understanding of what client customers value most in their business transactions.
The EMG Customer Value Model methodology is based upon the premise that customers buy products and services for the outcomes they produce, not for the sake of the products or services themselves. And, customers want their outcome expectations met or exceeded with each and every interaction with our client. They customer also wants assurance that he/she receives better value from our client than from the competitors.
The CVM approach involves working with customers to gain insights into how they “feel” about what is important to them, not just in how they “think” something is important. Although EMG uses survey instruments to gather quantitative data, we also use one-on-one interviews with customers to gain insights from their oral and non-verbal responses to determine what aspects of the business relationship are most valuable to them. For example, the majority of respondents to written surveys will indicate that lower prices are important to them. However, when presented with a question which forces them to choose between lower costs or better value, most will choose the better value.
The structure of the CVM is based on 4 categories, identifying within each category the business aspect or transaction that is most important to the customer. The 4 categories are:
- Product Desirability
- Responsiveness
- Financial Contribution
- Relationship Equity
The CVM methodology compares our client’s performance to the criteria that their customers value most, and also compares the customers’ perceptions of the client’s performance to the competition.
When finished building and analyzing the CVM, our clients normally discover that there are a number of areas where they can improve their value proposition to the customer.
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