How to Write a Marketing Analysis Report

 Small Business

 Advertising & Marketing

 Marketing

ByTara Duggan


 RELATED
 How to Erase Songs From an iPod
 How to Change Business Strategies
 How to Export a Quickbooks Customer List
 How to Write a Report on an Advertising Campaign
 How do I Create Customer Feedback Loops?

Successful businesses typically conduct a marketing analysis before they introduce a

new product or service. Conducting research typically involves reviewing industry
analyst information, getting expert opinions and contacting customers for their
feedback. Write a comprehensive market analysis report to help your company’s
marketing, sales and finance teams forecast revenue and gross margin.

Download a template to use to document your findings or create your own format. Use
the document to show that there is a need for your product or service.

Identify the problems your product or service can solve. List details about the benefits
and features. Compare your product with a competitor’s product. Examine the
marketing strategy and point out its strengths and weaknesses.

List detailed information about your potential customers, such as age, location, gender
and other relevant details. Describe how you plan to market your product to them in
the current economic environment. Review industry journals, publications and
websites to get insight into how to market to these customers for your industry.

4
Run focus groups, conduct interviews or create a survey to get input from your current
customers, if applicable, regarding your ideas. Identify ways to reach new customers,
such as using social media technology and mobile technology. New marketing tactics,
such as text messages or mobile phone applications, may allow your business to
succeed where previous attempts failed.

Get expert advice. Read competitive reports from trade and industry sources, such as
Forrester Research, Gartner Research or Gale Research. Attend trade shows,
conventions and other events to get detailed reports and studies describing your
industry. Use data from the U.S. Department of Commerce to identify the general
economic outlook.

Estimate the size of the target market. Determine if the industry is stable, growing or
volatile. Determine what customers might be willing to pay for your product or service.
List features that differentiate your products or services from your competitor’s
products or services. Identify current customer requirements and project future needs.

Identify distribution channels for your product or service. Pinpoint how you can
achieve a competitive advantage. Describe how you plan to leverage current customer
testimonials to sell new products.

Establish a measurable marketing goal. For example, aspire to increase sales to

current customers by 2 percent within the next six months and engage two new
customers each month. Describe how you plan to track and monitor your progress.

How to Calculate a Customer Satisfaction

Ratio
 Small Business

 Business Technology & Customer Support

 Customers
 ByRick Suttle

RELATED
 How to Tabulate Survey Results
 Process Analysis Vs. Data Analysis
 How to Interpret CPM Matrix
 What Does Attribute Mean in Business?
 Total Assets to Total Accruals
Small companies use customer satisfaction ratios or scores to track the performance
of their customer service departments. They often incorporate scores of competitors to
better gauge their customer service performance in the marketplace. The ratios or
scores are often five- or 10-point scales, with the higher number representing the best
performance. Assign definitions to each number, such as "very poor, "somewhat poor"
and "very good." These allow for better interpretations of the scores to pinpoint
improvements and identify weaknesses.

Developing a Questionnaire

The process of calculating customer service ratios is time consuming. Start by

meeting with other managers and discussing which customer service attributes are
most important to your business. Write a questionnaire that includes all of these
attributes. Include elements such as professionalism, timeliness, accuracy and
"promptness in solving problems" on your questionnaire, for example. The attributes
must be the most relevant to your industry and type of customer service department.
Assign a five- or 10-point scale to each attribute. Define each number with a specific
definition. For example, you may use definitions such as "strongly agree," "somewhat
agree," "neither agree or disagree," "somewhat disagree" or "definitely disagree."
However, phrase the question properly to fit the answers. A strong preface for such as
response would be to ask the survey respondent, "On a scale of 1 to 5, how strongly
do you agree that XYZ Corporation resolved your problem?"

Setting Up Collection

The next step in calculating a customer satisfaction ratio is determining how to collect
the information and how often. Most small companies conduct their customer service
research by phone. They often hire marketing research agencies to do the telephone
surveys because of their expertise, computerized terminals and tabulation and
reporting capabilities. Tabulations are calculations. They show the average scores
companies receive on various attributes when all the results are calculated. For
example, a company may get a score of 4.5 on professionalism from all 300 people
who participated in the survey.

Establishing the Base Period

Your base period is your first set of surveys. Most market researchers believe that it is
best to conduct customer service surveys on a continuous basis. You would then
report the ratios every month or quarter, for example. Ratios compare numbers to
other numbers. For example, in January, you may receive customer service scores of
3.5 and 4.2 in accuracy and professionalism, respectively. February results may yield
scores of 3.6 and 4.0 for the same two attributes. Consequently, your performance in
accuracy increased by 0.1 and your professionalism dropped by 0.2. The actual ratio
comparisons would be 3.5/3.6 and 4.2/4.0. Hence, your accuracy score increased by
2.8 percent and your professionalism score fell by 5 percent.
Using Ratios to Track Performance

Customer service ratios are only relevant if they represent significant changes.
Significance is determined by the quantity of surveys completed. Market research
agencies usually calculate this information automatically when they tabulate your
customer service survey results. You can also use one of the many statistical
calculators available online. The key in your customer service analysis is to recognize
significant improvements or declines in performance. Compare these changes with the
progress of your competitors if you also track competitive ratios and scores. That way
you can pinpoint your advantages over the competition and recognize which customer
service attributes need improving.

How to cite customer requirements

To help you cite our definitions in your bibliography, here is the proper citation layout for the three
major formatting styles, with all of the relevant information filled in.

Page URL:

HTML Link:

American Psychological Association (APA):

Chicago Manual of Style (CMS):

Modern Language Association (MLA):

Read more: http://www.businessdictionary.com/definition/customer-requirements.html

Definition of Customer Requirements:

The wants or voice of customer in stated or implied terms.

Most of the times the customer is enabled to state the requirements precisely. (Like
please bring me a glass of luke warm water to drink). However, the customer may not
always be able to precisely state or equipped to realize the basic attributes of his
requirements. It is therefore the responsibility of the supplier to reconsider the attributes
of desired/ ]supplied product in terms of the implied or real requirements. For example,
the hygiene of the environment in which food is cooked in a resturant.
Customers have needs and requirements. A customer need  establishes the relationship between the
organization and the customer (example: I need (or want) an iPad). Requirements are those
characteristics that determine whether or not the customer is happy. (Examples: a requirement is
that the iPad is user-friendly, has to be fast in data storage and retrieval, etc.)

There are other requirements such as light-weight, long battery life and so forth. What we’re talking
about here though with Six Sigma is things that you can measure on a continuous scale. You can
measure user-friendliness on a Likert scale. You can measure the download/upload in megabits per
second or load times in fractions of seconds. The fact that the iPad is lightweight is just
a feature that doesn’t change and it isn’t something that you would really measure to make
improvements.

Customer Requirements
Published by MBA Skool Team, Last Updated: January 22, 2018

What is Customer Requirements?

Characteristics or specifications that should be present in a product for it to be deemed
desirable by the consumer.

There can be two types of customer requirements:

1. Service Requirement

2. Output Requirement
Service Requirements: Intangible aspects of purchasing a product that a customer
expects to be fulfilled. It consists of elements like on-time delivery, service with a smile,
easy-payment etc. It encompasses all aspects of how a customer expects to be treated
while purchasing a product and how smooth his buying process goes.

Output Requirements: These are mostly the tangible characteristics, features or

specifications that a consumer expects to be fulfilled in the product. If a consumer is
availing a service as a product, then various service requirements can take the form of
output requirements. For example, if the consumer is hailing a metro cab, then on-time
arrival becomes an output requirement. For other products such as gadgets, the
product specifications like the loudness and clarity of a pair of speakers becomes its
output requirements.

Moreover, there are 3 levels of customer requirements:

1. Must Haves

2. Satisfiers

3. Delighters
Must Haves: These are the bare minimum requirements expected by the customers; if
fulfilled customers will be not show any exceptional appreciation but if not fulfilled, the
customer will show dissatisfaction. The customers do not explicitly express their desire
for these but expect it to be understood. For example, a washroom in a restaurant; the
customer will feel that it is imperative to have a washroom in a decent restaurant where
families or people from business organisations come to dine.

Satisfiers: There are the requirements that customers express their desire for, explicitly.
If you offer better or more of these satisfiers, then the customers will appreciate it more
and will be more satisfied. For example, the assortment of desserts in a buffet; the
customers might feel that they’re entitled to at least two as they’ve paid heavily for the
buffet and will be happier if they get four.

Delighters: These are the extras or the add ons. Absence of these will not leave the
customer dissatisfied; in fact, the absence of these characteristics might not even be
noticed. But adding these would increase the customer’s satisfaction greatly and will
leave them delighted. For example, you order a-la-carte in a restaurant and get
complimentary wine.
 Your Customers' Needs
What are customer needs?

A customer need is a motive that prompts a customer to buy a product or service.

Ultimately, the need is the driver of the customer's purchase decision. Companies
often look at the customer need as an opportunity to resolve or contribute surplus
value back to the original motive.

An example of customer need takes place every day around 12:00 p.m. This
is when people begin to experience hunger (need) and decide to purchase
lunch. The type of food, the location of the restaurant and the amount of time
the service will take are all factors to how individuals decide to satisfy the
need.

Below are the most common types of customer needs -- most of which work in
tandem with one another to drive a purchasing decision.

16 Most Common Types of Customer Needs

Product Needs

1. Functionality

Customers need your product or service to function the way they need in
order to solve their problem or desire.

2. Price
Customers have unique budgets with which they can purchase a product or
service.

3. Convenience

Your product or service needs to be a convenient solution to the function your

customers are trying to meet.

4. Experience

The experience using your product or service needs to be easy -- or at least

clear -- so as not to create more work for your customers.

5. Design

Along the lines of experience, the product or service needs a slick design to
make it relatively easy and intuitive to use.

6. Reliability

The product or service needs to reliably function as advertised every time the
customer wants to use it.

7. Performance

The product or service needs to perform correctly so the customer can

achieve their goals.

8. Efficiency

The product or service needs to be efficient for the customer by streamlining

an otherwise time-consuming process.

9. Compatibility

The product or service needs to be compatible with other products your

customer is already using.
Service Needs

10. Empathy

When your customers get in touch with customer service, they want empathy
and understanding from the people assisting them.

11. Fairness

From pricing to terms of service to contract length, customers expect fairness

from a company.

12. Transparency

Customers expect transparency from a company they're doing business with.

Service outages, pricing changes, and things breaking happen, and
customers deserve openness from the businesses they give money to.

13. Control

Customers need to feel like they're in control of the business interaction from
start to finish and beyond, and customer empowerment shouldn't end with the
sale. Make it easy for them to return products, change subscriptions, adjust
terms, etc.

14. Options

Customers need options when they're getting ready to make a purchase from
a company. Offer a variety of product, subscription, and payment options to
provide that freedom of choice.

15. Information

Customers need information, from the moment they start interacting with your
brand to days and months after making a purchase. Business should invest in
educational blog content, instructional knowledge base content, and regular
communication so customers have the information they need to successfully
use a product or service.
16. Accessibility 

Customers need to be able to access your service and support teams. This
means providing multiple channels for customer service. We'll talk a little more
about these options later. 

In this article, we're going to explore how to attract and sustain customers
based on meeting their inherent needs and imposing value. For lunch, this
could be a special promotion, a short wait time, or a post-dining thank-you
email. If companies can begin to make changes before their customers' needs
aren't fulfilled, this can ultimately lead to growth, innovation, and retention.

What is a