Before defining customer needs, we must first define the key customers of the project to be improved. Customers are the recipients of products or services provided by enterprises. Customer identification usually depends on interviews, interviews, etc. And who are the key customers according to the information obtained. According to Pareto law, 80% of the profits of an enterprise come from 20% of its customers, and these 20% of customers are the key customers that the enterprise needs to maintain as much as possible. Only by first figuring out who are the key customers of the enterprise can we better meet their requirements. Customers can be divided into internal customers, external customers, intermediate customers and competitor customers. Key customers may be one person or a group of people, internal customers or external customers. It is not necessary for the company to sell all the products of the core process to external paying customers, and it is also correct to regard a certain department as the customer of the core process. It should be reminded that many enterprises often ignore and ignore internal customers, but in fact, internal customers and external customers are equally important to enterprises.

After deciding which are the core processes and key customers, it is necessary to fully understand the real needs of these key customers and how their needs and attitudes change with time, which is also the most important core competence that the company needs to develop in the 2 1 century. Only by truly paying attention to customers' needs can a company that truly listens to customers' opinions succeed.

The first task of defining customer needs is to collect customer data and formulate customer feedback strategies. Data collection is a matter that consumes a lot of time and resources, and the needs of customers are ever-changing. It is difficult to clearly understand the specific needs of each customer, but it is also possible to predict the fluctuation of customer demand trends by directly or indirectly collecting effective data of customers. Of course, it is difficult to collect specific data directly from customers. On the one hand, it is not easy to communicate effectively with customers. Although customers may have many needs, they are reluctant to disclose their sensitive information. On the other hand, customers may not be able to clearly describe their needs.

While collecting customer data and understanding customers' ideas, the company should also make a firm commitment to improvement and make plans to let customers know that they have made improvements. Only when customers feel enough respect and attention, will they be willing to tell their true thoughts to the enterprise and better describe their needs. In the process of data collection, try to avoid such a situation: although you have the data you need, no one can tell you where to find it; Or key information has been released, but no one is using it.

If customers' data is collected without any analysis, the enterprise will only collect a pile of garbage. Therefore, after collecting data, we must analyze these data objectively and uniformly. Because of the different ways of data collection, some data are qualitative and obtained through open-ended questions, while others are quantitative, so different technologies are needed to analyze them. Qualitative analysis refers to that several appraisers use several unified standards to divide customers' needs and opinions into several categories. Each evaluator should review all customer questionnaires, sort out the frequency distribution of all data, and then two or more evaluators compare the results. Qualitative analysis can clearly show the needs that customers are concerned about, but it does not give the relative importance of these needs. Quantitative analysis can just make up for the deficiency of qualitative analysis. By analyzing the frequency distribution of customer data, the order of importance of customer requirements is given. In this way, the company can clearly understand which needs of customers should be focused on.

Collecting customer data is only the first step to clarify customer needs. After collecting effective data, it is the basis to establish a customer feedback system to analyze the collected data. After analyzing the collected customer data, the customer feedback system will clarify which customer needs are not met, and respond to them and take corresponding actions. Enterprises should take the establishment of customer feedback system as a continuous activity, as a long-term priority and work center of the company. To establish a customer feedback system, we should not only listen to the voices of satisfied customers, but also pay attention to the voices of dissatisfied customers, both existing customers and potential customers. If we only interpret the feedback from customers as the opinions of existing customers, or only collect the information of potential customers and ignore the existing customers who bring benefits to the company, it may make the company draw wrong conclusions about the market and customers. A core requirement of establishing customer feedback system is that enterprises should have the ability to grasp market trends and identify customer needs. Only with these abilities can enterprises understand the new changes in the market and take the lead in the changes in market preferences. Otherwise, it is easy for enterprises to miss new opportunities or take detours, so that enterprises can't keep up with customers' needs and lose to competitors. Only when the company analyzes the customer feedback data and takes actions accordingly can the value of customer feedback data be displayed. Whether collecting data or establishing a customer feedback system, its purpose is to clarify customer needs and their changes. Only by truly understanding customer needs can we provide products and services better. After clarifying the customer needs, enterprises need to review and update the existing data and materials about customer needs, expectations, praises and complaints in time, and describe customer needs with observable and quantitative data as much as possible. In any case, you can't subjectively guess what is most important to customers, nor can you base your demand statement on hearsay or other inaccurate information. Enterprises should also be prepared to find changes in customer needs at any time. Once new customer feedback information is collected, they should make corresponding changes and responses in concepts and mechanisms.