Customers’ Wants And Needs

Customers’ basic wants and needs include the following:

• interacting with people;
• meeting people;
• being comfortable;
• feeling safe;
• eating and drinking;
• being entertained;
• having fun;
• relaxing;
• belonging.

 

When a customer chooses which pubs to visit, they consciously, or subconsciously, choose the ones that satisfy some of their basic needs. Customers’ needs are not static and vary with time and circumstances. As different needs become a priority, the customer looks for ways of satisfying these. This results in the customer making new choices according to their needs at the time. For example: ‘Customer A’, who has not eaten for 8 hours, primarily motivated to satisfy his need for food, may be willing to use a ‘shabby’ pub because it happens to serve food and is closest to him! Later, looking to satisfy his needs for interaction, belonging and fun, he is willing to travel 2 miles to another pub where his friends will be. This is an example of the same customer having different needs at different times, motivating him to use different pubs.

Satisfying Customer Needs

The important thing to remember is that customers visit pubs for more reasons than just to drink. Simply selling the best pint around is not enough. In order for your business to flourish, your pub has to satisfy a whole range of wants and needs. Customer satisfaction is directly influenced by the following key areas:

Premises

• convenience of location;
• what facilities are available;
• the quality of the facilities;
• quality of décor;
• quality of fixtures and fittings;
• layout;
• temperature and lighting;
• opening hours;
• parking and ease of access.

Drinks Products

• product range and choice;
• product quality;
• presentation;
• temperature;
• prices.

Food

• choice;
• quality;
• presentation;
• value for money;
• methods of payment (eg debit and credit cards).

Licensee And Staff

• speed and efficiency of service;
• attentiveness;
• friendliness and approachability;
• product knowledge;
• personal presentation;
• control of premises.

People

• types of existing customers;
• similarity to themselves;
• behaviour;
• friendliness of atmosphere;
• acceptance from existing clientele.

Entertainment

• type;
• frequency;
• quality;
• suitability.

Targeting Your Customers

Target Customers

Different types of customer use different types of pubs. It is very difficult to present your pub as the solution for every type of customer’s needs. What attracts one type of customer will discourage another. Rather than trying to be all things to all people, you should concentrate on attracting and retaining a few key customer-types by shaping your business to meet their needs. Focusing on a few key customer-types and doing it well is preferable to trying a ‘catch all’ approach and doing it badly. The customers you want to retain and attract are your ‘target customers’ and your marketing efforts should be aimed at them.

Existing Customers

There are many sorts of customers living and working within a pub’s catchment area, each with different needs. Fortunately, you are not starting a business from scratch. Your pub has the benefit of existing customers who feel that your pub satisfies some of their needs.

As a new licensee, your aim is to find ways of building your business by attracting new customers and encouraging your existing customers to spend more.

Getting your existing customers to spend more is the easier of the two ways of building your business. They already use your pub, you know who they are, and something about them. It is relatively easy to find out their preferences and communicate with them. Sales turnover from your existing customers can be increased by encouraging them to visit your pub more regularly and/or spending more on each visit. Your marketing activity for existing customers should concentrate on ways to achieve this.

New Customers

New customers can be broadly divided into two kinds:

• customers of the same ‘types’ as your existing clientele;
• new ‘customer-types’.

 

Customers who behave in a similar way and have similar needs can be banded together as ‘customer-types’. Examples of these are OAPs (Old Age Pensioners), students, executives and married couples etc. Splitting customers down into categories is known as ‘market segmentation’ and there are some extremely sophisticated ways of doing this. Customers can be segmented by age, occupation, social class, marital status and lifestyle. For our purposes, a simple means of categorising our customers is all that is needed.

Attracting similar customer-types to your existing clientele is less difficult than attracting completely new customer-types. The argument here is that customers of the same type as your existing clientele will find your pub meets their needs in the same way it does for your existing clientele. New customer-types are more difficult to attract because you have to speculate more about their needs and find ways of making them aware and interested in your pub. There may also be fundamental reasons why they are not using your pub at present and changes may have to be made in order to accommodate them.