Customer Requirements Categorization Based on a Hierarchical Structure

1 Customer Requirements Categorization Based on a Hierarchical Structure 

Marketplaces have manifold requirements for alternative products as well as services. Such requirements are customer specific and crucial to understand in order to be able to satisfy various customers of a single company. Thus, a focus is required to adjust supply chains to match customer requirements (Childerhouse et al. 2002). However, identifying customer needs and requirements is a complex but crucial task in a business environment. Studies among customers normally reveal 200-400 different customer needs. Hence, in order to structure the vast number of 

A survey on evaluating important aspects of customer service, which is shown in Table 3.1, names 35 different needs that are regarded as relevant aspects in customer service. 

The most often desired service element is delivery time, followed by quality, after-sales service, delivery information and price. Assuming that after-sales service and delivery information can be combined to flexibility, it is discovered that all of the successively listed elements (e.g. order accuracy, availability or delivery reliability) could be allocated to one of the first elements, which therefore are considered as primary or strategic needs, namely delivery time, quality, flexibility and price. 

The identified strategic needs in customer service also hold true for those in a supply chain environment. From the vendor s perspective, it is claimed that focusing on the end user brings forth a lot of issues that have to be taken into 

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