How Your Customers Evaluate Stuff

Interviewing three customers for alternatives helped me understand how different the needs are in the special needs community.  My first interview elaborated on the fact that she uses her physician recommendations to find services and activities for her child.  These may be further away from her home than she would like, but she would prefer to utilize services that have a good reputation and will give results.  As far as my solution, she said that even though it would save time to have a center with many options, what she looks for is the quality of the service.  So if the service is top notch she will travel to spend her money there.

The second interview said that his family looked for activities closer to home.  It can be difficult to get their child anywhere on time, so the closer to home the better.  He said that it also mattered how much the activities where.  With all of the therapies, additional costs on top of that might put a strain on their budget.  He suggested offering services through a non- profit that would help many families who struggle with the additional costs.  

My third interview was very interested in the center, but wondered if I should start by partnering with activities and help them adapt to the special needs child and help them start their own programs.  This would not be one center in one place, but it could be difficult to find individuals who specialize in areas to come to a center for one or two classes.  This mom looks for many activities to keep her child busy and believes giving her child the experience of visiting many establishments was good for socialization.

This segment was diverse in what alternatives they would use and they all had different factors that was important to them.  This makes it difficult to narrow down the solution to offer something that has a competitive advantage and would suit most customers in one segment.  Creating a non-profit could help many but would now require fundraising to keep the services going.