Customer Needs – Driving Interest and Usage
Research for understanding customer needs
The Biggest and Fastest Growing Brands meet Customer Needs… Does Your?
Before customers make a purchase or a choice, they often consider a variety of options – both consciously and subconsciously. Historically, it was almost impossible to understand this process, or how well brands add value and meet their customers’ needs. But not anymore. Our ability to explore and understand human behaviour and needs has really evolved – revealing fresh and exciting new levels of insight.
Many businesses know the product or service they want to deliver, but they often struggle to convey it to their consumers – or to align it with what people need or want.
Some businesses turn to Maslow’s ‘Hierarchy of Needs’ – a simple and popular tool that helps brands to better understand customer needs. But it’s not enough. It just doesn’t go deep enough to explain why people make certain choices. Maslow’s model fails to recognise that our decisions are often instantaneous and subconscious – incorporating a complex mix of multiple factors and fuzzy logic.
Why measuring customer needs is problematic
Why do we choose one brand over another? Most of us can’t explain it clearly—because much of it happens subconsciously.
Behavioural Economics and System 1 Thinking play a big role. These hidden drivers shape how we connect with brands, often without us realising it—making it tough to articulate what we truly want or why we’re willing to pay more.
At Vision One, we dig deeper. We go beyond traditional research by combining disciplines to uncover customer needs and values in ways once thought impossible.
Qualitative research moderators helps reveal motivations, but it’s even more powerful when grounded in a wider understanding of the factors behind decision-making. That’s why we created a unique quantitative survey method to map out the emotional and rational forces shaping your category.
And it doesn’t stop there.
Our Brand and Customer Needs System—at the heart of BrandVision and the Brand Wheel—builds on and goes beyond Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs. It maps 26 core emotional and functional benefits to give you a groundbreaking, full-spectrum view of your category and the brands within it.
Client feedback and testimonials
Allianz (Insurance and Asset Management)
Vision One were a pleasure to work with. I enjoyed the whole process start to finish, they managed my expectation perfectly and their level of service was outstanding and their insights were effective. I would recommend them to anyone.
Salcombe Gin (Alcoholic Drinks)
Vision One were excellent to work with throughout the process. They understood our brand and its needs and took on feedback to make changes where necessary. We’re very happy with the level of insight gained.
Silentnight (Beds, Mattresses and Sleep)
Vision One’s BrandVision has given us new and powerful insights – helping us understand our brand health and shape our strategic decisions going forward.
I just want to say thank you so much for the brilliant presentation yesterday. The work you’ve done has really hit home, which will make a massive difference to our work. We’re really grateful!
Vision One delivered exactly what we wanted with no fuss or issues. Every step of the process was easy, hassle-free and the relationship always felt warm. I would recommend them to any charity or organisation wanting to conduct research.
Fantastic service. Will go the extra mile to accommodate your needs and fit within changing timelines and requirements.
The 26 Customer Needs Explained
Vision One’s proprietary Customer Needs Research System is used to help generate an in-depth understanding of customers and what is important within a market or product category, and often sits alongside BrandVision’s 8 core metrics. The 26 Needs illustrated above are divided into four areas below.
Tab Contents
Basic Needs
Firstly, Primary refers to the needs that are common to many products and services. These needs are ‘basic’, in that they relate to health, safety and convenience (reducing both time and effort).
Our Primary needs include seven key needs: Simplifies, Saves time, Reduces Effort, Safety, Wellness, Saves Money and Therapeutic.
Quality Needs
Our Quality measure includes six key needs. Quality refers to more tangible elements of a product or service, such as Effective, Durable, Sensory and Innovative. It also includes more service-related themes, such as Informs and Organises.
Quality needs tend to be more prevalent in prestigious and upmarket categories, where reliability and consistency are important.
Expression Needs
An expression is a group of needs that potentially express something about the actual (or perceived) user.
This consists of 7 needs: Fun, Optimism, Fulfilment, Motivation, Belonging, Nostalgia and Reward.
Feelings (Emotional Needs)
Our fourth group of needs are Feelings. This group consists of both personal and social values/needs.
The group’s six needs are Social Appeal, Badge Value, Connectedness and the more intrinsic needs of Variety, Integration and Aesthetics (beauty).
BrandVision explores all 26 customer needs to identify what your target group and customers are really looking for from your brand. But it also explores how well your brand (and competitors) meets these same customer needs. Customer needs research is a powerful BrandVision metric that helps to identify any strategic weakness in your brand offering.
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Vision One is a leading customer research agency helping firms truly understand their audiences and deliver exceptional experiences. Our services include customer experience (CX) research, customer satisfaction studies (cSat), and customer segmentation to reveal what drives loyalty and behaviour.
Combining advanced analytics with qualitative insight and customer journey mapping, we uncover the ‘why’ behind customer decisions—empowering businesses to enhance experiences, build stronger relationships, and drive sustainable growth.
Organisations partner with Vision One because we provide:
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