Product & Service Design - Meeting the Customer's Expectations and Value Added Design

Background:

The issue of value added associated with a product or service design is cornerstone to customer satisfaction. When analyzing and designing processes to transform resources into good and services, these questions must be asked:

1. Is the process designed to achieve competitive advantage in terms of differentiation, response, or low cost?

2. Does the process eliminate steps that do not add value?

3. Does the process maximize customer value as perceived by the customer?

4. Will the process win orders?

Each step of the product and service design process must add value, expecially to the customer. In the case of services, customer's expectations may not be obvious, however, their expectations still must be met.

Questions for Thought:

1. Is the customer always right? Can you think of examples when a customer isn't always right?

2. Is there a balance between customer interaction and mass production? How do fast food establishments deal with this balance? How do sit down restaurants deal with this balance?

3. What is the responsibility of a manager and a firm for designing products and services that accommodate customers idiosyncrasies or special requirements?

4. The cook in Big Night, Primo (Tony Shalhoub), insists that the customers do not know what they want. In fact, he goes so far as far as telling them this bit of wisdom to their faces. Can you think of any examples when a service provider may actually be justified in telling their customers that they do not know what the customer wants or what is value added?