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Where Earthmovers Go to Grow

Arrow-white What does the customer really want?

Posted by Gem Hart
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May 23, 2018

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4 mins read

 

Looking at our Market and what we offer, I often find myself considering, what is the customer really wanting. Using the analogy of “no, the customer doesn’t want a 6mm drill piece, what they really want is the 6mm hole”  and yes, you could even go further than that to what they are really trying to achieve.

Attach2-onsite

Putting this into our concept, we are a supplier of Excavator Attachments so what problem are we trying to solve?

Why does the customer buy Cat, Kobelco, Sumitomo, Doosan, Hitachi, Case, Bobcat, Hyundai, and so on? What is this customer really trying to achieve? Are they actually wanting the Excavator? Yes I agree, the emotional attachment to machinery definitely pulls close on the heart strings of mine which seems to be a family trait. Further to this point though, our customers are really wanting a “hole” meaning a project completed on-time and to the right specifications. With this goes being on budget, preferably under.

So what are the outcomes for the customer and what are they really looking for?

Help me define this, my thoughts are he is looking for

  1. It has to be, to complete a Project for his area of Business. The Customers customer is only looking for this aren’t they? That being a road (So travel and safely), foundations (So a home), a commercial building (Conducting Profitable Business) and so on and if you’re a Hire Company, potentially all of these. 
  2. Secondly, the Machine on the Job on time. This has an effect on the cost of the project and actually achieving start time.
  3. Machine uptime, this has to be the premium. Machine not working, the project isn’t making progress.

Considering these points and failure on these - how does this make the customer look? Is the Brand reputable? Are you going to make the Customer look like a Jerk? Every business has challenges so what separates you from the rest? Is it how you are handling those being better than the others?

So following this, you take price of the initial capital purchase versus Project delays/penalties/budget blowouts that can come from Machine Downtime. The list is ongoing if you consider wages, repair costs, hire of a machine and then there is motivation of complaints to deal with. The cost side is one thing but what about the lack of, not being able to charge? The missed opportunity cost? What price is the customer really trying to Manage? It is the overall of your overall offering and where you are adding value in the Customers chain that determines this.

This is Attach2's Quest for answers while on this Journey, and the challenges we’re constantly working on to determine excellence. Attach2 are NZ's quality assured excavator attachment partner for excavator re-sellers providing them with product support and guaranteed availability.

construction downtime

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