After defining Acme’s offering and identifying the targeted customer segments, the firm is ready to define each segment’s needs along the customer experience life cycle. This exercise is a critical step in defining what we called the total solution: the aggregate of all products, services, and information that cater to a customer’s requirements. In addition, this step structures the firm’s efforts to identify other constituents, other companies, who seek to fulfill the customer’s unmet needs.

There are six life-cycle stages through which a customer progresses when attempting to satisfy a need: need identification, research, purchase, receipt, support, and evaluation. Figure 5.5 illustrates the model. Note that we have listed the generic types of constituents most likely to be encountered in each life-cycle stage. These constituents include the firm that offers the product, competitors providing substitutes, service providers enabling a transaction, retailers and resellers distributing the product, complementors
providing an offer to be used in conjunction with the product, affinity groups such as friends and family, and independent authorities as information providers. A firm undertaking the analysis will want to list the
actual companies that fall within each constituency group.

The purpose of applying a life-cycle model is to identify the customer’s requirements from initial need recognition to after-sale satisfaction assessment. Identifying the customer’s needs and the specific constituents at each stage of the life cycle allows the firm to develop strategic initiatives that affect the experience life cycle. This is where the notion of a total solution comes up again. The life cycle helps us structure our inquisition into where, when, and how Acme’s customers are becoming aware of the firm’s products; when and how customers are acquiring these products; and how they are using them. Let us look at the individual life-cycle stages and the constituents that influence each.

Taken From : Enterprise Guide to Gaining Business Value from Mobile Technologies

Filed under: Generate Money

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