Who Comes First: Consumer Or Customer ?

Other day in one of my sessions, the marketing staff complained about (false) sale of some products. The goods sold by the company a couple of years ago were still lying in near-unpacked condition at buyer's end. The new staff at their client company appeared non-cooperative when the seller approached to effect a new sale.

The objective of the training workshop was to improve sales revenue. The case under study turned out to be one of a wrong-sale.

Why were the goods lying in near-unpacked condition for so long?

Because the user didn't find it fit-for-use.

Why?
Because the order was finalized by purchase manager without adequate involvement of the end-user.

What had happened was the seller knew the purchase manager who happened to have 'influence' on closing the deal. So he used his relationship to materialise the order.

In the process the real user got ignored.

Not only does ego of the user gets hurt due to such indifference but also some opportunities get lost.

Opportunity to understand real needs: the voices of grassroot level customers.
Opportunity to design-in such voices in order to make the offering robust.
Opportunity to outdo competition through customized offering.
Opportunity to enhance relationship.
Opportunity to create 'word-of-mouth' publicity advocates reinforced through delightful experience of the offering.

All this loss at the cost of loss of future business.

Buyer's management might succeed in forcing the end-user to use bought goods particularly if it's a costly capital equipment. But such forceful 'selling' calls for some long-term Costs-Of-Poor-Quality (COPQ): Costs due to reluctance to use. Costs of wrong use. Costs due to inadequate serving of purpose. Costs of sour relationships among people within and without.

All this waste because of overselling or inadequate selling.

What's the learning?

Understand the difference between Consumer and Customer! End-user of the pen or pencil, the child for instance, is the consumer. Buyer, the parents, are the customer.

Consider the voice of consumer regarding functional use (her needs) first while designing an offering.

Do consider the voice of customer as well in order to design-in peripheral aspects of the offering as well as nuts and bolts of the corresponding buying process: the wants.

Sometimes however the role of consumer as well of the customer may be played by the same personality.

In any case, she might take presence of both the needs and wants for granted as a 'must'. But the seller/marketeer can't afford to because the absence of both surely won't be taken for granted individually nor jointly by both the consumer as well as the customer.

Also read a few relevant blogposts hereunder:

Aesthetics Spills-Over Function, Want Spills-Over Need (Part-1)
Aesthetics Spills-Over Function, Want Spills-Over Need (Part-2)
Functional-Aesthetics
WOW Work-Culture: By Telling or Selling
How To Make A Difference
Nauseous Communication Gaps
Judge If It's Paralysis-By-Analysis
Suggestions On-Sale, None-To-Buy
Taken-For-Granted ? You Deserve It !!
Strategise To Achieve Targets Daily
Does recognition really matter
Customer or Custo-Mer ? 
Experienced A Delightful Payment !
An Experience of Heart-and-Soul
Do you keep curing your brand ? 
A customer gets what s/he deserves: Shoddy Quality! 
Listen to iceberg of VOC to acquire customers
Do You Force Customers To Quit
Should one care for value ? 
Treat Root-causes, Not Symptoms !
Do You Ask Right Questions ? 
Talk In Order To Listen! 

Aesthetics Spills-Over Function, Want Spills-Over Need (Part-2)

While I was forced to challenge aesthetic-design of the cup in Part-1 of this blogpost, incidentally I was heading to conduct a workshop on Value: Value-Engineering and Value-Analysis.

Value-Engineering And Value-Analysis

On one hand, increased cost to deliver same-or-reduced benefits-or-function in an offering implies that the value is reduced. On the other hand, offering the same-or-enhanced benefit/s-or-function/s at a reduced total cost to customer or end consumer means value is increased.

Making improvements with realisation of this re-actively (i.e. after the design is already in commercial use creating trouble for customer) though is about the concept of value-analysis. Realizing this proactively (i.e. making all-round improvements while testing the design itself keeping customer in the loop adequately) is about value-engineering.

Modifying the design of the cup after a customer faces difficulties (as in Part-1 of this blogpost) is about value-analysis. Launching an offering with well-tested trouble-free design by listening to unspoken voice-of-customer and the impact of the design on ecology is about the concept of value-engineering.

Both lead to enhanced value but the later generates more value by preempting the costs that otherwise tangibly incur in case of the former. The round shaped cup for instance preempts the COPQ (Cost-Of-Poor-Quality) incurred by the square-cup design (as in Part-1 of this blogpost).

Look at the shape of the ice-cream glass in the picture. It's an example of value-engineered judicious balance of the aesthetics-with-function. The value created in terms of the aesthetic shape of the glass without interfering with its function is designed-in into the offering.

Need Spills-Over Want

Function is a need: the primary requirement a customer expects an offering to serve.

Aesthetics is a want that is desire-based and is actually secondary requirement or in some situations even tertiary one as in case of coloring hair in VIBGYOR shades or colouring food-grains. I've seen color-coated groudnuts especially in some parts of Gujarat!

A judicious balance of 'needs' and 'wants' is the need-of-the-hour. Rather eco-friendly design of the offerings revolving purely around basic-or-primary 'needs' is actually the 'Survival-Need' of the warming-planet itself.

Most costs to the customer, society, and the planet get designed-in due to inadequate designs of products, services, processes, policies, etc.

So designers and leaders should value the value-engineering more. They should promote corresponding Kaizen improvements so that need for value-analysis at the cost of the COPQ incurred by the customer gets reduced if not eliminated.

In fact they should steer their organisations towards finding and marketing the 'needs' rather than 'pushing' consumerist attitude and habits towards desire-based 'wants'. Such leaders are the real friends of the planet. Those who nurture excessive wants are in a way a burden on the planet.

Greedy-wants push-up unnecessary human activities (non-value-activities). Unnecessary human activities be those at personal level or at corporate business level lead to over-consumption of resources. Over-consumption of resources is like raping the planet if I may say so!

An Exercise

Look at the picture for self-study at a little higher level of difficulty though.

It has five different designs (1, 2, 3, 4, 5) of a nose-mask. Different designs are expected to serve different functions in different situations. You may like to attempt answering following questions:

1/ Which product-design is designed to serve what function in what situation?
2/ Which product-design can serve what function in what situation as an alternative? Justify the "how?"!
3/ In that case, which product-design offers maximum Value? Justify the "how?" with its likely COPQ?
4/ Which product-design is a case of Value-Engineering and which one is of Value-Analysis? Justify the "how?"!
5/ What kind of greed-based 'wants' make the corresponding product a necessity?
6/ What are the 'needs' in the above context? And with what alternatives can we move towards satisfying the 'needs'?

What are the lessons¹?

1/ Let's change our mindsets to value 'needs' more than 'wants' while designing products, services, processes, and policies.

2/ Let's go beyond the myopic vision of running businesses for the sake of 'profit only' as its moto! Visualize the 'profit-for-planet' by viewing life-cycles of products, services, processes, and policies as subsets of the evolving need-cycles.

3/ Unnecessary aesthetic sheen while doing so is a want that does increase unnecessary cost. Enhanced cost does force a compromise on functional quality.

4/ Desire for Wants spills-over Needs and in turn spills-over the planet.

Aesthetics Spills-Over Function, Want Spills-Over Need !

Unwanted Aesthetic-Sheen

With a desire to be seen
Maketh a Person Mean 

Hi-Cost-Lo-Function: The affair routine 
Defies the very purpose of Lean
That of making the planet Green

Footnote-1: Reader may add tips and suggestions from own experience.
Footnote-2: The recommendation under Five-S's practice in Kaizen.

Also read a few relevant blogposts hereunder:

Do You Celebrate Mean-or-Green
Functional-Aesthetics

Aesthetics Spills-Over Function, Want Spills-Over Need (Part-1)

Aesthetics Spills-Over Function, Want Spills-Over Need (Part-2)

Should one care for value? 

Do you exercise your choice meaningfully

What You See Isn't What's Made

You seem Reasonable if you appear Un-reasonable

Wish To Be Planet-Friendly?: Save! 

Less With More And More Gets Sore

Suggestions On-Sale, None-To-Buy

Can-changing-thoughts-change-a-nation

That's How Morons Work

Smart-Moron Who Breaks Your Glass 

WOW Work-Culture: By Telling or Selling

Eternally Happy

Eternally Happy: परमानंद

Aesthetics Spills-Over Function, Want Spills-Over Need (Part-1)

Look at cup in the picture carefully!

Can you see tea marks all along the rim? Can you guess the reason of the tea spilling over all along the rim? 

It was due to square shape of the cup that it's content tried to find it's way across the rim while trying to take a sip. In fact it spilled over my shirt since side of the square is longer than opening of the mouth. In case of a round cup however, the flow narrows down over smaller width.

As you may see, the soccer too is so shallow that cup finds it difficult to hold on to it's feet over the soccer. Cup ends up shaking as a result. 

I got delayed for my appointment due to spillage over my shirt that made me rework my 'make-up': a mini crisis!

The idiosyncratic miser in me tends to tangiblize everything specially in case of waste.

Why not? Time as also other resources are money! So the resultant COPQ (Cost-Of-Poor-Quality) of Poor-Design that resulted in such rework, that you may also be able to estimate, bring forward a few lessons.

What are the lessons¹?

1/ Designers should take care not to let unnecessary aesthetics spill over functionality unlike an interior designer for instance. In order to make a guest-room 'look' well-appointed, a poor designer doesn't allow labeling² of utility switches even if it means a guest struggling for the one s/he needs: be it a light, a fan, or hot-or-cold water-tap in a wash room. In fact, some fittings have so fancy looking designs that the user looks like a farm-fresh villager who struggles to use them.

2/ Aesthetic design short of adequate functionality may be able to generate  initial affinity towards a brand but won't be able to create brand-loyalty that is long-term. Although aesthetics may appeal emotionally, without functionality it won't be able to appeal to rationality of the buyer. S/he looses interest in the offering because it fails to deliver value that s/he was looking for.

3/ It's always a good idea to test designs in order to make them simple and user-friendly by seeking customer feedback.

4/ Merely pushing sales numbers by taking disadvantage of emotional behavior of buyer's desire to grab 'wants' is an age old marketing tactic. Marketers should reset their mindsets and refrain from such overselling.

5/ Buyers should counter marketing tactics by basing their buying decisions on rationality rather than emotionalism.

6/ Buyers should buy because 'it's good in serving their purpose' rather than because 'it's good-looking!'

The example that I began with in this blogpost looks trivial. But the message it gives is not.

In order to know the larger purpose that it serves, you may read Part-2 of this blogpost.

Footnote-1, Reader may add tips and suggestions from her own experience.
Footnote-2, This is the recommendation under Five-S's practice of Kaizen Culture.