Core Benefit of Your Product: How important it is?

A basic part of product offering is its core benefit. Company sometimes forget what is the basic offering of their products. Basic offering is sometimes miss-leaded by variations or attributes that added to a product in order to create differentiation. The company might be realized and come back to the basic offering once the customers abandon or ignore their product offering. This is the time when company is failed to full fill customer’s needs.

Core product is the basic product and the focus is on the purpose for which the product created. Generic product is the qualities that the product should have. All aspect that the customer expect to get when they purchase the products is expected product level. Augmented product is differentiation that offer by one product if compare with competitors -particularly involve in brand identity and brand image. Potential product is a level that might be delivered in the future).

Basic product offering is a core benefit of the product. The benefit of the product, more than often, is intangible. For example is generic hotel business. A hotel provides room for its guest. Their basic offering or core benefit of the service is providing shelter and good sleeps for its guest. If the hotels failed to provide it, they might be failed. No matter good the hotel provide generic product (bed, bathroom, chair, desk, and wardrobe), expected product (quite room, comfort bed, clean room, and good plumbing), augmented product (minimalist room, certain brand of quality bed, and top tier branded bathroom amenities), or potential product (electronic massage capability bed, dolby system theater styled entertainment) — if the hotel can not provide a good sleeps for its guest, the other product levels are useless.

Back to the core benefit of the product –I believe this is the unconditional promise that must be delivered to the customer. Airlines company’ core product must be transfer passenger to their destination safely. If airlines company can not do that, they are failed. Banking core product is trusted money safe keeping service and provide other prudent financial service. Automaker company core product is provide a reliable car to commute.

The core benefit is important. But the most important thing is how to measure success rate in delivering core benefit to customers. The hotel might can use survey or questionnaire to take guest comment upon checked out, airlines company can check the numbers of accident –zero level accident must be delivered by the airlines. Banking must be able to provide secure transaction to customer –they can measure core benefit success rate by count number of incident that caused customer lost their money. And automaker company can measure how much car being repaired due to factory defect.

Measuring the deliverability of core product might take a consistent effort by involving database or continuous satisfaction surveys. The effort is worth enough to make sure company can deliver all core benefit to its customer and do not missed it that might trigger the customer abandon company’ goods and services and move to competitors’ product.